India
that is
Bharat
To preserve the binary orthodoxy and fundamental beliefs in
one modernity, one rationality and their universality,
Western civilisation constituted itself claiming ownership of
Greek thought and the local Western version of Christianity,
by the destitution of the differences, and the accusation that
differences and dissenting positions to Western orthodoxy
were and are irrational, anti-modern and grounded in local
fundamentalism. The celebrations of modernity and
postmodernity are both conservative in intent to manage
the future. Decoloniality doesn’t propose a return to a
pristine past, but the reconstitutions and restitutions in the
present (and towards the future) of destitutions in the name
of modernity, rationality and emancipated thinking. Sai
Deepak builds a strong decolonial argument disengaging
from modern Western orthodoxy of the either/or, and
proposes instead the decolonial logic of neither/nor. He does
it by means of a detailed and careful reconstitution of
knowledges, ways of knowing and patterns of sensing that
were destituted and continue to be so in the name of
progress, democracy and economic development, all under
the mantra that more is better. Such reconstitutions require
dwelling and thinking in the borders between grounded local
languages, memories and praxis of living that cannot be
supplanted by languages, memories and praxis of living
grounded in foreign local histories. Such is the argument
that Sai Deepak builds, and invites us to think and work
decolonially towards pluriversal futures.
—Walter D. Mignolo
William Hane Wannamaker Distinguished
Professor of Romance Studies,
Duke University, USA
J. Sai Deepak has begun something here that needs serious
attention. It also suggests that significant support is
required to develop its proposals further in directions not
yet explored.
I hope the book will be read and debated widely, especially
in and for the sake of the ‘India that is Bharat’.
—Dr. Prakash A. Shah
Reader in Culture and Law, Queen Mary University of
London
World over, academic discourse is rife with decolonial
arguments that have been explicit in their challenge to the
insular homogeneity of historical narratives, nomenclatures
and historiographical frameworks emanating from Europe.
These movements of reclamation and ‘reparatory justice’
rely on what is popularly called ‘epistemic disobedience’
that seeks to reimagine and reconstruct our world, our
notions of ‘modernity’ and ‘rationality’ from the viewpoint
and lived experiences of hitherto enslaved colonies. Much of
this scholarship has so far emanated from Latin American
and African countries. Asia, in particular India, which has
been the longest sufferer of colonialism, is conspicuous by
the lack of her adequate representation in this discourse.
The tide, however, seems to be changing for the better now.
Through this magisterial trilogy, advocate and scholar J. Sai
Deepak successfully fills a huge vacuum in the corpus of
decolonial scholarship from a uniquely empathetic Indian
perspective. In a masterful manner, Sai Deepak traces the
global history of colonialism, India’s unfortunate tryst with it
and, importantly, enquires its impact on the emergence of a
colonial consciousness. Combining the skills of an adept
lawyer and a tenacious researcher, Sai Deepak references a
wide and impressive array of archival literature to make a
compelling argument that in the case of India, decoloniality
is not merely an option but a civilisational imperative, which
we simply cannot afford to delay any further. Gleaning from
the works of several Indic as well as Western decolonial
scholars and policymakers, and legislative debates, he
makes a richly-layered case in this eminently readable
treatise on how, despite being technically free from
colonialism with the achievement of freedom, our minds are
far from being decolonised. It is this ‘coloniality’ that
regularly manifests itself in judicial pronouncements on
Indic
faith-based
matters;
the
State’s
continued
stranglehold and perverse intervention in the majority’s
places of worship; or the casual, axiomatic pronouncements
of the elite, who debunk the very idea of our existence as a
nation ever, pathetically attributing this as well as other
economic milestones (railways, schools, etc.) to the Raj. Not
the one to fear calling a spade by its name in the interests
of political correctness, Sai Deepak convincingly busts each
of these myths and symptoms through the heft of his
intellect and the might of his fact-based arguments. It would
become amply clear to any discerning reader too, just as Sai
Deepak rightly concludes by taking recourse to pop culture,
that European coloniality is like the matrix—one just needs
to become aware of it, after which it is impossible to unsee
it, especially in matters of religion, polity, education,
economics and the law. A must-read tribute to the Indic
civilisation for anyone serious about understanding the
pernicious trajectory of invasive colonialism and the
lingering colonial consciousness in the ‘independent’ Indian
(or should we term this as he does, Bharatiya) mind, and
how to consciously work towards reversing it.
—Dr. Vikram Sampath
Historian, Author and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at
Monash University
Advocate J. Sai Deepak has provided India with a milestone:
a step from superficial to integral decolonisation. The
coloniser has transferred the exercise of power in 1947–
1950, but left in place a legal framework that continues to
guide the lives of Indians in considerable detail—a ‘steel
frame’ of perpetual and profound European domination. Few
combine the vision of a civilisational liberation, easy to
invoke in malleable cultural respects, with the exacting
juridical knowledge needed for a precise and workable
paradigm shift to deconstruct this lingering submission. In
particular, Sai Deepak problematises the version of
secularism that actually managed to worsen the imposition
of an extraneous model on India’s management of plurality.
After digesting this conceptual decolonisation, a selfrespecting India will have a formidable task in implementing
Sai Deepak’s analysis of her subtle colonised condition.
—Dr. Koenraad Elst
Scholar and Author of Decolonizing the Hindu Mind
Just a century ago, our scholars and philosophers who were
rooted in the Sanatana ethos applied just one word to
describe the underlying nature as well as the history of
European colonialism: Asuric. This is the exact vocabulary
that we must reclaim today if we are to fully reclaim the
precolonial narrative of India, which continues to be set by
the same European colonisers. This is one of the
fundamental contours of the urgent imperative to fully
decolonise India. In fact, this decolonisation effort had
begun during the era of modern Indian Renaissance—
roughly between the second half of the nineteenth and the
second half of the twentieth century. What is notable is that
the luminaries of this Renaissance were running a parallel
track of stopping the cultural and psychological colonisation
of India, even as it was spreading all around them. Another
characteristic theme of this Renaissance was to produce a
comparative history and analyses of the world from the
Sanatana perspective. Tragically, the effort was halted in
1947.
What Christopher Columbus failed but Vasco da Gama
succeeded in—discovering India—are underscored by the
same motive. In retrospect, Vasco da Gama was the feeble
forerunner of a more far-reaching and eminently successful
project of colonising the indigenous psyche. Indeed, a
measure of the sorry depth of our mental colonisation is
visible even in recent history. In 1998, the Kerala
government decided to celebrate the 500th ‘anniversary’ of
Vasco da Gama’s ‘arrival’ in India as though he was a
benefactor of sorts. However, this only shows the
comprehensive extent of the success of the European
colonial project.
Sri Sai Deepak’s book is a detailed and multipronged
exploration of precisely this phenomenon from the Sanatana
standpoint. His book employs the approach derived largely
from recent scholarship in the emerging discipline of
decoloniality that originated in Latin America. Quite
ambitious in its scope and candid in its tenor, the book is
essentially a continuation of the ideas that were seeded by
the luminaries of the modern Indian Renaissance but uses
contemporary academic epistemologies.
What is also notable is Sri Sai Deepak’s frank declaration
that he has adopted a ‘learner’s approach’, a rare honesty
of taking a firm position that is difficult to find in what is
today known as mainstream academic scholarship. The
wealth of evidence the author marshals in support of his
arguments is truly impressive and reflects the rigour of his
study. I have no doubt that India that is Bharat will be a
welcome addition to the nascent corpus of literature in this
specialist field. That it has emerged from India is a bonus. I
wish the book and its author all the success in getting the
recognition it deserves.
—Sandeep Balakrishna
Scholar and Author of Invaders and Infidels
The book is a must-read for everyone who is interested in
understanding the relationship between the consciousness
of the world’s oldest surviving indigenous civilisation and
the Constitution of the world’s largest democracy.
—Professor Lavanya Vemsani
Professor of History, Shawnee State University,
and Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Indic Studies
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For Amma, Appa, Akshara and Prasad
|
||
Rig Veda 10.85
Truth is the base that bears the earth;
by Surya are the heavens sustained.
By law the Ādityas stand secure;
and Soma holds his place in heaven.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Dr. Gautam Senxv
Acknowledgements
Introduction
SECTION I: COLONIALITY
1 Colonisation, Colonialism, Coloniality and
Decoloniality: Language Matters
2 The Discovery of Coloniality and the Birth of
Decoloniality
3 Coloniality, Indigenous Faiths, Nature and Knowledge
4 Entrenchment of Coloniality through European Political
Structures
5 Decoloniality, Indigeneity, Subjectivity and
Relationality
SECTION II: CIVILISATION
6 Bharat, Coloniality and Colonial Consciousness
7 Bharat as a Civilisation
8 European Coloniality and the Indic Civilisation
9 Christian Colonial Consciousness, the Hindu Religion,
Caste, Tribe and Education
SECTION III: CONSTITUTION
10 Coloniality, Civilisation and Constitution
11 The Standard of Civilisation, the League of Nations
and the Government of India Act, 1919
Notes
Index
About the Author
FOREWORD
The almost accidental journey of J. Sai Deepak, once a
student of engineering, towards the legal profession, and
then a momentous apparent decision to grapple with the
future of his very civilisation, is a fascinating story worth
reading for the narrative alone. His awakening is also an
account of the growing reawakening of the Indic civilisation
itself, the subject of V.S. Naipaul’s celebrated book A Million
Mutinies Now. The protagonist of this tale, J. Sai Deepak, did
not apparently begin with any remarkable antecedents for
this quest, except perhaps, an urgent desire to understand
the troubling predicament of his own civilisation. His thirst
for deeper knowledge to analyse the vexatious situation of
Bharat amounted to a manifestation of Gnana and an
approach that echoes Darshana. It prompted him to begin a
trilogy on the experience of Bharat as a civilisation, with the
present volume ending in 1920 and two projected volumes
covering the period from the early 1920s and beyond. The
civilisational issues evaluate a number of core issues that
define its encounter with the modern world. Sai Deepak
describes them as the impression on Bharatiya civilisation of
the tension between coloniality and constitution, exhibited
specifically by the impact on religion, nature, language,
caste and tribe.
Sai Deepak became an autodidact, reading widely and
consulting eminent intellectuals of the human sciences. It
could not have been an easy task to immerse oneself in a
vast literature with which he did not have familiarity, given
his educational background in engineering and the law. But
he has grasped the essentials of the vast and complex
arguments and put them down in a readable form in his
single-handed endeavour to impact the course of Bharatiya
history. There are and were others traversing this stony path
but he is unique in the import of his practical focus on the
law to bring about concrete change, which ideological
campaigns alone cannot achieve. Reading his book
highlights the clarity and nuance for which he has become
justly admired and respected as a lawyer. His book also
encapsulates the need for even more thoughtful research to
fully explicate the issues raised by Sai Deepak.
Sai Deepak’s involvement in historic cases—such as the
Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple case—as a Supreme Court
advocate, serves as the trigger for his book because they
underline the critical issue of the historical consciousness of
Bharatiyas evident in how they were presented, argued and
received by the Supreme Court. The apparent dichotomy
counterposed between tradition and the rationality of
modernity by those involved on opposing sides exposed the
parameters of the key intellectual conundrum analysed by
Sai Deepak, namely coloniality and the distorted
consciousness, by and large, of the Bharatiya society. Such
perceptual distortions arose from the unconscious and
largely unquestioning acceptance of ideas of modernity that
came to dominate intellectual life in the nineteenth century
and accepted as valid by both colonisers and the colonised.
The argument advanced in the book is the exact obverse of
the accusation of ‘false religion’ levelled by Christian
evangelists against Hindus. What Sai Deepak seeks to
unravel is the mystique and veil of coloniality itself that has
profoundly shaped the thinking of the conquered by white
European Christian subjugation since the advent of
Christopher Columbus in 1492 ce.
A key intellectual and political conviction of the argument
in the Latin American decoloniality literature, revisited in Sai
Deepak’s tract, is the overpowering nature of colonial
consciousness and the distinctive self-serving mindset of the
coloniser as well. It first locates the origins of the colonial
experience at the dawn of the religiously and racially
inspired Age of Discovery rather than the subsequent era of
the Enlightenment that preoccupies postcolonial analysts,
firmly establishing its underlying Christian ideological
rationalisation. The decoloniality episteme rejects the
unspoken
foundational
intellectual
assumptions
of
modernity that are, in effect, also subliminally universalised
within the very postmodernist and postcolonial critiques of
the colonial and imperialist postures of European modernity.
In effect, the decolonial framework seeks to reinscribe the
primacy of indigeneity, indigenous consciousness and its
subjectivity in formerly colonised societies and civilisations.
One of the fundamental questions examined in the book is
the rootedness of the entire colonial venture in Christian
conceptions derived from Biblical verities. However, what is
very rarely understood is the chameleon adaptability of the
Christian ideological yearning towards spiritual and
psychological enslavement of the ‘Other’, manifested in the
post-Enlightenment world as ‘secularism’. Christian theology
also proved an irresistible handmaiden to the prolonged
plunder of colonised lands and it inflicted a particularly
devastating tragedy by severing indigenous traditions from
the seamless continuity of life with nature that many nonEuropean societies practised. Of course, brutal violence,
cynical contrivance and the manipulation of local divisions
and fissures were the important immediate and daily
adjuncts to the colonial rule.
Sai Deepak focuses detailed attention on an issue of
particular importance to Bharatiyas, which is the likely
nature of the colonial impact on their civilisation, and the
relevance of coloniality to explain their current predicament.
In a thoroughly fleshed out exegesis, Sai Deepak reiterates
the findings of leading scholars of Bharat on how deeply
coloniality has imbued Indic consciousness, which exhibits
itself in self-abnegation, even self-loathing. Every aspect of
Bharatiya society, including its governance and legal
structures, originates in colonial constructs that disavow
Bharat’s indigeneity. Its continuing adroitness in nurturing
extra-national loyalties and tethering Bharat’s intellectual
life to the interests of extra-civilisational detractors can only
be described as dismaying.
Poignantly, the European worldview continues to prevail in
former colonies, such as Bharat, without the need to
actually espouse Christianity, since it spawned the secular
worldview and framework from within its established
traditions and scriptural injunctions. This misconceived
explanatory framework, which continues to hold sway in
Bharat, fails to grasp the nature of the continuing
adversarial demonisation of Bharat’s indigeneity by misspecifying the very parameters of the discourse and
misdirecting it towards overarching intellectual sources of
stupefaction, such as secularism. Sai Deepak also highlights
the role of coloniality in Bharat’s failure to truly excavate
the nature of the Islamic impact on Indic culture, which is
itself a product of secular political expediency that enjoins
deceit and self-delusion in the alleged interest of buying
that elusive social peace. In the same vein, Marxism is also
rightly deemed as just another universalising European
project, though in Bharat it has been repackaged to
accommodate crass contemporary exigencies and has long
allied itself opportunistically with both European and Middle
Eastern imperialisms. Hence, the imperative of decoloniality
to prevent the decimation of what remains of Bharat’s
indigeneity.
In a foray into the history of the seventeenth-century
British incursion into Bharat, Sai Deepak highlights the
cultural and religious nature of the East India Company’s
motivations, wrongly depicted in most historical accounts as
essentially commercial. Propagating the gospel was affirmed
as a purpose at the very outset in 1614 and subsequently
repeated unequivocally, and the East India Company was
specifically authorised to make war on ‘heathen nations’ by
a Charter in 1683. One critical dimension of colonial
experiences was the policy of tolerating the scriptural and
doctrinal essence of Hinduism and delegitimising popular
practices, adjudged by colonial bureaucrats to be
superstitious. The intervention imposed a thoroughly
distortive Christian paradigm of separation between the
religious and the secular, meaningless in terms of
Indic/Dharmic philosophical perceptions and practices. The
most enduring aspect of colonial interference, prompted by
cognisance of temple wealth, was in successive legislative
acts introducing State regulation of temples. It is this legacy
that haunts the integrity and very durability of Sanatana
Dharma in independent Bharat and the insistence of
governments of all political stripes to allow the progressive
degradation of temples.
In two revelatory concluding chapters, Sai Deepak
graphically revisits the debates and legislative acts that
preceded Bharat’s First War of Independence in 1857 and
those that followed the assumption of direct rule over
Bharat by the Westminster government and its designated
representatives in Bharat. It is amply clear that effective
political rule to pre-empt future revolts remained Christian
in spirit, despite the Queen’s proclamation of religious
neutrality in 1858, with all the antecedent precepts of
toleration continuing to be deeply imbued with Christian
prejudices imposed on Hindu society and practice, viz
official hostility towards alleged superstitions, etc. At the
same time, the British debate on governing Bharat
continued to reiterate the desirability of mass conversions
of idolators, publicly and resoundingly articulated by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and supported by the then British
prime minister. In addition, successive Government of India
Acts of the British Parliament modifying the Act of 1858
extended some legislative representation to Bharatiyas, but
the underlying ethos of the primacy of European Christian
theological inspiration motivating the coloniser remained
intact.
In the final analysis, the discerning lawyer, Sai Deepak,
underscores the fact that the Government of India Act of
1919 provided the framework for independent Bharat’s
Constitution of 1950, while the Government of India Act of
1935 provided its architecture, which he promises to explore
further in the sequels to this book. Further, interrogation by
Sai Deepak of founding documents and pronouncements of
leading Western statesmen affirms how the notion of
‘civilised
nations’
to
characterise
the
expanding
international order asserted a secular Christian motif to
define it at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the
Treaty of Versailles. Sai Deepak concludes the book with the
hope that Bharat’s public institutions, including its judiciary
and executive, will reflect thoughtfully on Bharat’s
indigenous traditions, and that decolonial perspectives will
inform their decisions on issues arising in relation to them
so that Bharat’s enduring coloniality may be overcome. The
book is a handsome effort to bring ideas and modes of
analysis to the attention of Indian readers that will enable
the achievement of true freedom and fresh thinking to
embrace their historic cultural antecedents with dignity.
London
9 July 2021
—Dr. Gautam Sen
BSc (Economics), PhD (London),
Co-creator of the graduate programme in International
Political Economy at the London School of Economics &
Political Science
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book, like everything else in life, is not the product of a
solo act. The process of writing this book has taught me
several life lessons which I hope to never forget. For
starters, there is absolutely no substitute for the
unconditional love and support of my family, particularly my
parents who are my first teachers, and from whom I have
learnt the value of integrity and determination, among other
things. Their fortitude and optimism under all circumstances
never ceases to amaze me. For close to nine months from
October last year, when I started writing the book, until the
release of the pre-order link this July, without so much as a
murmur, my parents have put up with my unavailability
caused by my professional commitments and writing
schedule in equal measure. I thank them for who they are,
for this book would not have been possible without their
calm presence. Thanks are equally due to my wife Akshara,
for her support to my endeavours and unstinting patience
with my demanding schedule, and my brilliant younger
brother J. Sai Krishna Prasad (better known as JSK), for being
a wonderful sounding board. I could not have been blessed
with a better set of parents and family by the Gods.
The Gods, at whose feet I prostrate, have put me through
an unusual journey, the reasons for which are still beyond
my ken and grasp. Be that as it may, I am nothing but
grateful to Them for the family and culture I have been born
into, the gurus I have been mentored by and learnt from
(especially Shri S. Paranjothi, the former Head of
Department of the mechanical engineering department from
my engineering days), the friends and well-wishers I am
surrounded by, the people I have interacted with, the
opportunities that have come my way, and the learning
curve I have been put through in all spheres and at every
step of my life. I thank the Gods for this book, my first,
which is the product of an epiphany that triggered my
switch to law from engineering, back in 2006, because
every decision, according to me, has the hand of the
Supreme Consciousness written all over it, which is only
revealed in hindsight to the human mind.
Special thanks are owed to Dr. Indumathi Viswanathan,
Hindu-American scholar and educator, who introduced me
to the framework of decoloniality and its literature in April
2020 after hosting me on a webinar on the Constitution for
the benefit of Indian Americans. Terming my legal
arguments before the Supreme Court in defence of the
Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple’s religious practices as
‘decoloniality in action’, she urged me to build on decolonial
scholarship when I had shared my intent to pen a book on
Bharat’s civilisation and its relationship with the
Constitution. She was also kind enough to be available for
extensive and intense discussions when the first section of
the book, which deals with coloniality, was being written.
Thanks are due to Ms Sumita Ambasta, another scholar to
whom I was introduced by Dr. Viswanathan. Ms Ambasta
directed me to the literature relating to education, language
and development policies of former colonies.
While in search of the right publisher for the book, given
the nature of issues it addresses and the diverse audience it
caters to, it was Shri Sanjay Dixit, former bureaucrat, lawyer
and commentator, who put me in touch with Bloomsbury
India. I must convey my thanks to him for the introduction.
If the process of writing a book could be compared with a
motor rally, the researcher is the navigator without whom
the driver could lose focus and direction. The researcher is
the human compass of the writing process, who, apart from
providing ammunition for the book, also keeps the author
grounded by preventing flights of fancy. Ms Shaktiki Sharma,
lawyer and researcher, has performed this role to perfection
by grasping the message the book is meant to convey and
providing the material needed to convey it. Her
commitment to the cause of the Indic Renaissance was
balanced by her objectivity as a researcher, which ensured
that the book’s propositions and conclusions found sufficient
basis in scholarly literature and legislative material. My
profound thanks to her for being part of this journey.
Given the sheer goldmine of material collected for the
book—which necessitated its break-up into a trilogy—the
manuscript required a fresh pair of eyes with attention to
detail and a flair for editing to ensure clarity, coherence,
flow and lucidity in the interest of readability, especially in
view of the subject tackled by the book. The invaluable
editorial assistance rendered by Ms C. Sai Priya, a doctor by
training, and Indic researcher out of passion, has made the
book much more readable, for which I thank her.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the creative
inputs received towards the conception of the cover design
from the brilliant team at Upword helmed by Ashish Dhar,
himself an Indic entrepreneur and commentator. In
particular, Utkarsh Khanna and Harshit Jadwani of Upword
worked with Syed Dilshad Ali of Bloomsbury India to create
a cover design whose brilliance stands validated by the
universally positive reception it has received upon its
release. I also thank Akshara and JSK for their aesthetic
inputs on the cover, which significantly contributed to the
final outcome.
I would not have been able to embark on this journey of
writing the book but for the dependability of my junior
colleagues—Advocates
Avinash
Kumar
Sharma
and
Abhishek Avadhani—who helped me with my professional
commitments as I worked on the book. Thanks are also
owed to Nupur J. Sharma, Rami Niranjan Desai and Advocate
Eashan
Ghosh
for
being
constant
sources
of
encouragement, particularly Eashan, for being available for
discussions on the mechanics of writing a book, being an
author himself. I am also deeply grateful to Senior Advocate
Shri P.S. Narasimha for his confidence in my abilities and his
supportive disposition to my initiatives.
I thank the team at Bloomsbury India, specifically Shri
Praveen Tiwari, Shri Nitin Valecha, Shri Vimal Kumar, Ms
Shreya Chakraborti and Ms Megha Dey, for all their efforts
towards putting this book together and bringing it out.
Praveen’s patience with my calls, queries and follow-ups
deserves a special mention.
Finally, I offer my deep veneration and gratitude to
Indic/Dharmic icons and scholars of the past and present
whose lives, ideas and work I have drawn from, and upon
whose majestic shoulders this book rests. I sincerely hope
and pray that this book and its sequels contribute, even if a
mere pebble, to the cause of reawakening Bharat’s
civilisational consciousness.
Introduction
If you grew up in the 1990s in a middle-class Hindu family
in southern Bharat, not to perpetuate stereotypes, but
chances are that a career in engineering or medicine
featured right at the top of your life goals. My goals were no
different, not just because of my limited means and
exposure but also because I was keen on pursuing a career
in aerospace engineering. However, eventually, I had to
settle for mechanical engineering and committed myself to
performing well so that I could pursue a masters in
aerospace engineering. By the time I reached the end of the
sixth semester in mid-2005, I was well placed to start a
career in the core manufacturing sector, in the event I failed
to secure admission to a good aerospace programme.
Just when it seemed like I had it all figured out, I started
having second thoughts about what I truly wanted to do in
the long run. This introspection was partly triggered by my
visits to Ramakrishna Math, the writings of Swami
Vivekananda, Dr. Arun Shourie’s incisive and piercing books1
and the spike post the elections of May 2004 in the
normalised and open hostility directed at specific Indic subidentities, especially on academic campuses. Had it not
been for the writings of Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Shourie,
I would have missed the forest for the trees since it was
evident that the hostility, while on the face of it, was
directed at specific Indic sub-identities in the name of
societal reparation, it was, in reality, meant to weaken the
larger Indic civilisational edifice. Systematic isolation,
ostracisation and acculturation of one Indic strand at a time
seemed to be at play. It became clearer with each passing
day that this hostility had the previously tacit but
increasingly overt support of extra-civilisational, specifically
colonial and non-Indic systems that stood to benefit from
this motivated internecine tussle.
Thanks to my interactions with better informed people
who were civilisationally rooted and had worked on the
ground, I gradually came to understand that while the
instinctive human reaction would be to protect the subidentities one was closest to, the priority should be to
preserve the civilisational tapestry and its foundations,
which enabled the birth, growth and expression of diverse
sub-identities. This also meant that protection of Indic
civilisational integrity did not require the submergence of its
sub-identities at the altar of a well-intentioned, albeit
misplaced, grand unity project. On the contrary, history
seemed to teach us that the survival of the Indic civilisation
as a civilisation depended on the flourishing of its subidentities, with each of the sub-identities realising that they
were part of a federal symbiotic whole and that it was in
their own existential interest to remain part of the whole. I
also learnt that the tumultuous and fissiparous state of
affairs that met the eye was the product of sustained longterm investment at a very fundamental level much before
1947. Therefore, it required, at the very least, an equally
sustained long-term investment by the society at the most
fundamental levels, namely the group and the individual, in
order to undo the damage sustained by this living
civilisation.
This realisation had a profound effect on me; however, I
was not remotely sure of the path I had to take. Any drastic
change in career paths required me to take the immediate
family into confidence and convince them of my decision,
and rightly so, because I had not given them the slightest
inkling that I was going through a churn. But before
breaking it to them, I wanted to be sure of the path myself,
and so, I spent the seventh semester evaluating a career in
civil services and alternatively, the law.
In early 2006, in my final semester, I had the opportunity
to present a technical paper at the Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. That is when I learnt that the
institution was all set to inaugurate later that year a unique
three-year LLB programme with an in-built specialisation in
intellectual property rights under the auspices of its newly
established law school, the Rajiv Gandhi School of
Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL). What made the threeyear law programme unique, apart from its marked tilt
towards intellectual property law, was the fact that it was
open exclusively to the scientific and technological pool of
the country. I realised that my future lay in the field of law,
which, I believed, would equip me with the skills I needed to
act on my convictions. In July 2006, a month after my
undergraduation, I joined the programme after clearing the
admission process for the IIT law school.
Although I had no known relatives who were part of the
legal fraternity and I did not know much about the
profession and its inner workings, the only thing I was sure
of was my interest in litigation. Despite the specialised
nature of the programme and my aptitude for intellectual
property law,2 upon my graduation in July 2009, I was
recommended by the Advisor to the law school to pursue a
career in constitutional law. In fact, he was kind enough to
write a letter recommending me to a Senior Advocate in the
Supreme Court who had then just been appointed as one of
the top law officers of the country. Though I loved
constitutional law, my personal commitments required me
to take up commercial litigation. So I started off as a civil
commercial litigator in a National Capital Region–based law
firm that specialised in intellectual property litigation and
allied areas, and practised primarily before the High Court of
Delhi.
For the first seven years of my career as a litigator, until
mid-2016, while intellectual property law and competition
law were my core practice areas, I was given the
opportunity to work on a few landmark matters that
involved significant questions of constitutional import. In
2010, I was second chair for Greenpeace India in Tata Sons
Limited v. Greenpeace International & Anr.3 Tata Sons had
sued Greenpeace International and Greenpeace India in the
High Court of Delhi for alleged trademark infringement and
defamation citing Greenpeace India’s use of the Tata logo in
its Pacman-style game, Turtle v. Tata. The High Court’s
judgment in this case, while dismissing Tata’s prayer for
interim injunction on the game, laid down the law on the
interplay between trademark law, the law of defamation,
and the right to parody and fair comment as part of the
fundamental freedoms of speech and expression under the
Constitution. This judgment remains one of the finest in its
genre to date, and is appreciated for its nuance and clarity.
A few years later, in 2014–2015, I had the opportunity to
second chair for the Internet and Mobile Association of India
(IAMAI) in its writ petition before the Supreme Court
challenging certain provisions of the Information Technology
Act, 2000. These provisions required online intermediaries,
such as Facebook and Google, to take upon themselves the
task of deciding the legality of content posted by its users
upon receipt of legal notices from third parties seeking
removal of such content. The IAMAI’s writ petition was
decided in its favour as part of a batch of writ petitions in
the landmark judgment of Shreya Singhal v. Union of India,
which is otherwise popular for striking down of the
draconian erstwhile Section 66A of the IT Act.4 In the
judgment, the Supreme Court recognised the chilling effect
of overbroad restrictions on free speech. This judgment too
remains a landmark one for its contribution to free speech
jurisprudence, especially in the context of online platforms.5
While these cases certainly presented me with fantastic
opportunities to apply my understanding of constitutional
law to IPR and technology-related contexts and vice versa,
my brush with constitutional law from a civilisational
perspective first and truly began after I set up independent
practice, exclusively as an arguing counsel in June 2016.
Fortunately, since I had earned my stripes as a litigator by
then, my peers in the legal fraternity supported my
decision, which kept me in good stead as an arguing counsel
in civil commercial matters as well as in writ petitions before
the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
It was around then that Senior Advocate Shri C.S.
Vaidyanathan,6 one of the leading lights of the Supreme
Court, recommended me to the team that, till date, steers
the writ petition7 (‘the HRCE Petition’) moved before the
Apex Court by the Late Swami Dayananda Saraswati.8 The
HRCE Petition, which is yet to be decided by the Supreme
Court, challenges the constitutionality of the key provisions
of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable
Endowments (TNHRCE) Act, 1959, the Andhra Pradesh
Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments
Act, 1987 and the Pondicherry Hindu Religious Institutions
Act, 1972 (‘the HRCE Acts’) for violating Articles 14, 15(1),
19(1)(g), 21, 25, 26 and 29 of the Constitution.
The more I read the HRCE Petition and the material
assiduously put together by the team in support of the
petition, the more it convinced me that there was a clear
causal link between State control of Hindu temples and the
visible degradation of the temple ecosystem. Also, I came to
the jarring realisation that a legal framework as invasive as
the HRCE Acts was reserved for Hindu religious institutions
alone. I learnt of similar Hindu-specific legislations that were
in force in Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha and several other
States. Given the significant questions of constitutional law
involved in the HRCE Petition, such as the nature and role of
the Indian State, its relationship with religion and its
treatment of religious institutions of different faiths, I was
keen on contributing to the matter. I joined the team as an
arguing counsel on a pro bono basis, which gave me the
opportunity to work alongside eminent Senior Counsels,
such as Shri C.S. Vaidyanathan and Shri R. Venkataramani,
who had been spearheading the matter from the beginning.
Since I felt strongly about the issue, and there were several
myths in the public domain as to who controlled temples
and how, I delivered a few lectures on the subject within the
broader canvas of civilisation and the Constitution.
Coincidentally, it was around this period that I was
approached by the trustees of People for Dharma, an NGO
led by women, to represent them as intervenors before the
Supreme Court in a writ petition moved by the Indian Young
Lawyers’ Association in relation to the Sabarimala Sree
Ayyappa Temple. The writ petition sought entry of women of
a reproductive age group into the temple as well as the
removal of restrictions on entry of women into places of
worship/prayer of other faiths as well.9 People for Dharma
had previously launched a phenomenally successful
international campaign called ‘Ready to Wait’ on behalf of
the women who supported the rights of the temple to
protect its religious practices. I took up the case on behalf of
People for Dharma on a pro bono basis, since it presented
me with an opportunity to showcase before the highest
court of the land the sheer diversity of religious practices,
the unique character of religious institutions within the
Dharmic fold and the position enjoyed by the deities
enshrined within. I also wished to highlight the rights of
deities and the devout under the Constitution, and the
serious complications arising as a result of application of
non-Indic
ontology,
epistemology,
theology
and
jurisprudence to Indic ways of life, faiths, practices and
institutions. I presented these positions on behalf of People
for Dharma before a three-Judge Bench of the Supreme
Court, which heard several others in the case. In October
2017, the Bench referred the matter to a Constitution Bench
(a bench typically consisting of five judges).
By early 2017, in light of my involvement in the HRCE
Petition and the Sabarimala Temple case, the manifest
incongruity of having to establish the legitimacy,
authenticity and civilisational centrality of Indic/Dharmic
religious institutions before an ostensibly Indian court gave
me the push I needed to understand the journey of the Indic
civilisation better. Despite a demanding professional
schedule, I started reading the works of Pandurang Vaman
Kane, Jadunath Sarkar, Radhakumud Mookerji, R.C.
Majumdar, K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, K.S. Ramaswami Sastri, S.L.
Bhyrappa, R. Nagaswamy, Ram Swarup, Sitaram Goel,
Dharampal, Kapil Kapoor, Koenraad Elst, Michel Danino,
Shrikant G. Talageri, Meenakshi Jain and Sandeep
Balakrishna, apart from the publications of the Ramakrishna
Mission Institute of Culture and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
This was, of course, in addition to the writings of Swami
Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and other civilisational icons. My
reading was based on the recommendations of betterinformed individuals who worked full-time on civilisational
issues as trained scholars, historians, civil society
advocates, educators and public intellectuals. Also, the
diversity of my reading was handicapped by the unfortunate
reality that I was more comfortable consuming content in
English than in Indian languages, which represented the
very problem I hoped to understand better.
On the constitutional front, I revisited the history starting
from the Home Rule Scheme in 1889 until the adoption of
the Constitution in an effort to better understand whether
this document captured the essence of and reflected
Bharat’s civilisational spirit. B. Shiva Rao’s six-volume
publication The Framing of India’s Constitution: A Study, V.P.
Menon’s The Story of The Integration of the Indian States
and Justice Rama Jois’s Legal and Constitutional History of
India: Ancient, Judicial and Constitutional System served as
some of my principal references in this regard. I also read
through commentaries on Bharat’s journey towards
constitutionalism written between 1933 and the late 1940s,
which shed light on the history and the prevalent thought
processes on the subject. This exposure enabled me to
apply the lessons drawn from the literature to live
constitutional matters that had a bearing on the Indic
civilisational worldview.
Among them, perhaps the most significant was the
Sabarimala Sree Ayyappa Temple case which was taken up
for hearings in July 2018 by a Constitution Bench of the
Supreme Court headed by the then Chief Justice of India,
Shri Dipak Misra. Fortunately, alongside several stalwarts of
the profession, such as Senior Advocate Shri K. Parasaran, I
was granted the opportunity by the Bench to present
detailed arguments on behalf of People for Dharma and a
Delhi-based women’s organisation, Chetana, both of which
supported the religious practices of the temple and its
rights. This included its right to restrict the entry of women
of the reproductive age group. Unfortunately, the
Constitution Bench ruled in favour of the writ petitioners by
a majority of 4–1 on 28 September 2018, against which
several review petitions were moved. The review petitions
were heard in early 2019, and later that year,
acknowledging that the review petitions had merit, seven
questions of law were framed by a Constitution Bench
headed by the then Chief Justice Shri Ranjan Gogoi, and
referred to a larger nine-Judge Bench. Pending the outcome
in the proceedings before the nine-Judge Bench (known as a
‘Reference’, when a larger Bench is called upon to decide on
questions of constitutional import), the next Chief Justice,
Shri Sharad Arvind Bobde, declined to grant security to any
woman of the reproductive age group who sought entry
against the temple’s religious practices and beliefs, thereby
restoring the status as it existed prior to the first verdict.10
Alongside this, in the first half of 2019, in relation to the
Shri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala, I had the
privilege of representing the Chief Tantri of the Temple, the
Chief Priest of the Chilkur Balaji Temple in Hyderabad and
People for Dharma before the Supreme Court in an appeal
from the 2011 judgment of the Kerala High Court. In its
judgment, the High Court had held that the Travancore
Royal Family had no authority over the administration of the
Padmanabhaswamy Temple after the abolition of royal titles
and
privileges
by
the
Constitution
(Twenty-Sixth
Amendment) Act of 1971. The High Court had also
transferred control over the Temple to a trust, which was to
be managed by the appointees of the State Government of
Kerala. Fortunately, the Supreme Court reversed the verdict
of the High Court on 13 July 2020, and upheld the rights of
the Travancore Royal Family as well as the authority of the
Chief Tantri on religious matters in relation to the temple.11
My involvement in this case required me to understand,
among other things:
1. the nature of Hindu princely States prior to their
integration with the Indian Union;
2. the relationship between the heads of Hindu princely
States and their titular deities;
3. the circumstances, terms and conditions of
integration of Hindu princely States with the Union;
4. the history surrounding the Twenty-Sixth Amendment
to the Constitution; and
5. of course, the recurring issue of State control of
temples.
Little did I know then that the experience of working on such
matters of constitutional and civilisational significance
would prepare me better to make sense of what was to
transpire between August and December 2019. During this
momentous period, Bharat witnessed the following:
1. Amendments were undertaken to Articles 367 and
370 of the Constitution on 5 and 6 August 2019, and the
erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised
into two Union Territories with effect from 31 October
2019.
2. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court led by the
then Chief Justice of India, Shri Ranjan Gogoi,
pronounced a unanimous verdict on 9 November 2019
affirming the ownership of the Deity Shri Ram Lalla over
His birthplace in Ayodhya, thereby validating a 500year-old Indic civilisational and religious movement to
reclaim Shri Ram Janmabhoomi.
3. The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (‘the CAA’)
was promulgated on 12 December 2019, which provided
an accelerated access to citizenship for persecuted
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians
from Muslim-majority countries, such as Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Each of these developments generated significant debate,
which was natural given that these were tectonic shifts in
Indian history, that touched upon quite a few fault lines and
unresolved legacy and civilisational issues. That said, the
most troubling aspect of these debates, which kept rearing
its head over and over again, was that the very legitimacy
and the underlying identity of the Indian State and the Indic
society were called into question.
We were being told that Bharat was a synthetic product of
colonisation, which had no identity or consciousness of its
own before the European coloniser set foot on its soil and
stitched it together as one ‘nation’. Arguments that were
allegedly rooted in the Constitution were being marshalled
to support these positions, which effectively turned the
Constitution into a battleground of sorts. The extent of the
divide was such that I was told on social media that the use
of ‘Bharat’ for India was bigoted and against the
Constitution’s promise of secularism. The fact that Article 1
of the Constitution expressly began with ‘India, that is
Bharat.…’ to declare its roots and heritage to the world was
barely known, and even if it was known, the significance of
the use of ‘Bharat’ in the very first Article of the document
appeared to have been lost over time. That is when I
decided to examine the fundamental question of the
relationship between India and Bharat through the prisms of
civilisation and the Constitution, and what it meant, if
anything, to the State and to the society at large.
To this end, I began to write a few pieces for Firstpost12 and
Open Magazine13 capturing my views. In particular, I argued
against approaching the Constitution with a sense of
affected and exaggerated religiosity without understanding
it in the broader context of the civilisation, which, I
contended, was the primary canvas as well as the object of
protection. To romanticise and venerate the Constitution, I
argued, was to conflate the means with the end to the
detriment of the civilisation. In a nutshell, I took the position
that the Constitution must be alive to history to serve its
intended purpose.
These were my tentative beginnings on this intersection,
and my thoughts took better shape when I spoke at a
conference in Chennai on the Hindu character of princely
States based on the research that was put together for the
Shri Padmanabhaswamy Temple case. Around this time,
ideas for a book had started taking shape in my mind and
quite a few well-wishers had begun to ask me to pen my
thoughts in the form of a book. However, I first wanted to
run my ideas through a series of pieces before capturing
them coherently in the form of a book. This, I felt, would
also help me to assess if I could balance my professional
commitments as an arguing counsel with my writing
initiatives. While I was still mulling over the prospect of
writing a book, the world was hit by the COVID-19
pandemic. I decided to use the respite provided by the
lockdown to read up more on civilisational and constitutional
aspects before starting a column.
I set out to try and make sense of existing ideological
divides across the political spectrum in Bharat. It seemed to
me that regardless of labels, there was a common
acceptance of the colonialised version of Bharat’s history,
especially in matters of human rights, religion, education,
environment, development, caste and gender. In fact, there
seemed to be a shared view across ideologies that there
was indeed a ‘universal’ and uniform moral standard that all
‘civilised societies’ must adhere to. Barring a handful of
scholars, such as Ram Swarup, Sitaram Goel, Dharampal,
Koenraad Elst, Dr. S.N. Balagangadhara and Dr. Jakob De
Roover, very few seemed interested in challenging the
Western-normative framework which informed these socalled universal standards. Even those who publicly extolled
the Indic civilisation for its spiritual, philosophical, legal and
epistemological traditions, seemed more interested in
calling out the selective application of such supposedly
universal standards. For some reason, they would not
question the application of the Western-normative
framework that refused to accommodate Indic thought.
Critically, the ontological and theological origins of this
framework and their effect on non-Western civilisations,
such as Bharat, did not seem to get the scrutiny and
examination they warranted.
What piqued my attention was that the reservoir of
colonial stereotypes about the Indic civilisation, which
seemingly opposing sides (or ‘wings’) dipped into and drew
from liberally, pun intended, was the same. While one
reinforced the stereotypes to make the case that there
existed no connection whatsoever between Bharat and
India, the other highlighted the very same stereotypes to
make its case for a ‘liberal’ Bharat, a new idea of India, if
you will, citing Bharat’s innate openness to new ideas and
‘reform’. The former, at least, wore its antipathy to the Indic
consciousness openly on its sleeve; the message that was
being evangelised by the latter was a repackaged version of
the Reformation, in this case, an Indic Reformation. Of
course, the latter school of thought pursued its Reformist
agenda while paying lip-service to Bharat and its
civilisational character to placate the larger Indic society
with tokenism. This was a critical layer in the national
discourse which needed to be unpacked, in my opinion,
since the larger goals of reclaiming Indic civilisational
consciousness and agency over it were being relegated to
the margins by both sides, albeit for different reasons. The
net result was the same—Bharat would continue to operate
within the coloniser’s framework, while its civilisational
character would be put to symbolic and ornamental use
without any real and lasting impact on policymaking.
To me, this did not bode well even for Bharat’s economic
aspirations since the premise of an Indic Renaissance, that
is, a re-inscription of indigenous consciousness onto
contemporary Bharat, was that it was not necessary for
Bharat to play by the West’s rules in order to achieve
economic prosperity. On the contrary, I believed that a
civilisational reclamation had the potential to spur
confidence and originality of thought, thereby paving the
way for economic progress in a way that was consistent with
Indic ethos, which valued a balanced approach to nature
and development. Critically, the pursuit of economic
prosperity through the mere imitation of a Western
framework, according to me, would cement the notion that
the only viable way was the Western way, which would have
irreversible and catastrophic consequences for the survival
of Bharat’s indigeneity. I believed that it would be unwise to
put economics and civilisational priorities in walled gardens
because the relationship between the two was too close to
risk a silo-based approach. After all, the average person was
bound to assume and attribute the West’s economic
prosperity to the values and ideals it subscribed to, and
ultimately to its onto-epistemology and theology (OET).
Also, I asked myself, was it not the ultimate goal to ensure
that Indic thought had a respectable seat, its rightful
position, at the table of Big Powers? Unless, of course, the
true objective was to preserve the hallowed status quo
between the seemingly opposing camps, the sacred middle
ground where all civilisational enquiry ended regardless of
which side of the so-called ideological divide one was on.
This was when I started considering the possibility that
maybe I was unaware of the existence of an unwritten code
that allowed the envelope on the civilisational front to be
pushed only so far and no further, thereby maintaining the
hegemony of the Western-normative framework in Indian
discourse. What else could explain the unquestioned
deference with which the framework was being treated by
even those who claimed to stand for a living civilisation that
placed a premium on self-confidence, critical enquiry and
truth?
These questions led me to the view that it was important
for people to understand that Bharat as a civilisation was a
reality, and reducing that reality and near-unbroken lived
experience to a mere talking point to score brownie points
over one another was more a proof of expediency than real
conviction in the values the Indic civilisation stood for. After
all, if one did not believe in the capacity of this civilisation to
offer a credible and viable alternative to the Westernnormative framework, at least for Bharat, it would be
unrealistic to expect the rest of the world to look up to
Bharat as the ‘Vishwaguru’ (literally, teacher or guide to the
world). I believed that a people that lacked the courage of
their conviction to live by their own civilisational values
could hardly expect the world to look up to them for
guidance. Also, based on the writings of leonine
civilisational icons, such as Swami Vivekananda and Sri
Aurobindo, I believed every culture had something of value
to contribute to the global pool of thought. It was, therefore,
clear to me that recasting Bharat in the mould of the West
would kill its originality and character, making it a mere
vassal of the West, that too after the European coloniser had
left its shores. That would be a tragedy of incalculable
proportions for which we would have none to blame but
ourselves.
To bring out the unconscious and unshakeable belief in the
Western-normative framework across the political and
ideological spectrum, I began my search for similarly placed
movements in other societies which could be compared with
the Indic quest for cultural decolonisation. While I was aware
of the scholarly work of Dr. Balagangadhara and Dr. De
Roover on colonial consciousness in relation to Bharat, I had
two reasons for undertaking the search: first, to
demonstrate the global presence of such consciousness
owing to the scale of European colonialism and its successor
Western imperialism; and second, because contemporary
Bharat, unfortunately, sought global validation of its position
even on cultural decolonisation. Therefore, to make a case
for Bharat, I wanted to place its experience within or
alongside a global framework in the hope that it would drive
home the point better.
Also, as a practising lawyer, I sought a framework that
would make it possible for me to strike a balance between
civilisational imperatives and constitutionalism, especially in
view of the ongoing debates surrounding the Constitution.
One of the ways could have been to approach the subject
through the prism of the historical school of jurisprudence
based on the works of Friedrich Karl von Savigny, Georg
Friedrich Puchta and Henry Maine; however, I was interested
in a non-Eurocentric framework that was applicable to
societies that shared Bharat’s colonial experience and
transgenerational trauma. My most critical expectation was
that the framework must be malleable and conducive to the
Indic worldview given that Bharat’s colonial experience had
aspects that were both similar and dissimilar to the
experience of other hitherto colonised societies. Therefore,
my objectives were:
1. to continuously apply such a framework to my own
personal journey in understanding the Indic civilisation
on its own terms and using its own lexicon, warts and
all; and
2. to extend the application of this framework in a
concrete manner to my area of competence, namely the
law, and more specifically to the Constitution, given its
manifest importance to the polity of Bharat.
However, my search for a framework was not helped by the
fact that I lacked formal training in this area of humanities.
It was at this juncture that in April 2020, I was approached
to speak on the Indian Constitution at a webinar meant for
Indian Americans. After the webinar, Dr. Indu Viswanathan,
a Hindu-American scholar and educator whose brainchild
the session was, happened to remark that my work on
reconciling the Constitution with Indic civilisational
perspectives fell within the purview of ‘decoloniality’. To put
it in her words, she called it ‘decoloniality in action’, which
several other similarly placed societies had witnessed. She
urged me to look into decoloniality in order to understand
its applicability to the Indic position and was kind enough to
share some of the literature on the subject. As a result, I
started reading the works of scholars, such as Aníbal
Quijano, Walter D. Mignolo, Sylvia Wynter, Ramón
Grosfoguel, Catherine E. Walsh and Nelson MaldonadoTorres, among others. Dr. Viswanathan also put me in touch
with another brilliant scholar of decoloniality, Ms Sumita
Ambasta, who introduced me to literature that shed light on
colonial language policies, and the writings of Arturo
Escobar whose perspectives on the relationship between
coloniality and ‘development’ is a must-read for
development professionals in Bharat.
In my exploration of the subject, I learnt that ‘coloniality’,
as first conceptualised by Latin-American scholar Aníbal
Quijano, informed the European coloniser’s use of power
and was the very basis and justification for exploitation of
the world. Coloniality was the fount of European colonialism,
which in turn was rooted in the coloniser’s religious beliefs
that gave birth to his sense of racial superiority that placed
the Christian White European coloniser at the top of the
world order. It was this sense of superiority, which the
European coloniser treated as both a divinely ordained right
and scientific fact, that led to the creation of racial
hierarchies the world over. Coloniality reshaped the very
concept of history and time through the creation of
constructs as ‘modernity’ and ‘rationality’, terms which are
loosely used in contemporary everyday conversations
without knowledge of their colonial origins. This colonial
matrix of power, to which both modernity and rationality
were integral, had the effect of negating the cultural
experience and subjectivities of colonised societies, so
much so that according to the coloniser, their histories
began only upon his advent.
The literature taught me that ‘decoloniality’ was the
response to coloniality and the Eurocentric/Westernnormative framework introduced in colonised societies by
the European coloniser. The goal of decoloniality was to
unshackle hitherto colonised societies from the totalising
universalisms of European colonialism and its current-day
successor, Western imperialism, in order to restore agency
and dignity to their consciousness.
The more I read the literature on coloniality, the more I
realised that there was a clear and inadvertent handshake
between such literature and the works of Dr.
Balagangadhara
and
Dr.
De
Roover
on
colonial
consciousness. This told me that at the very least the
framework merited serious consideration, whether or not it
held all the answers to consciousness-related questions
faced by contemporary Bharat. Also, the framework gave
me the opportunity to call out the double standards that
were being applied to decolonial movements in other
decolonised societies on the one hand, and the Indic
movement for cultural decolonisation and reclamation of its
civilisational identity on the other. While the former has
received serious and positive attention, the latter has been
branded illiberal, xenophobic and lacking in historical basis.
This hypocrisy needed to be called out.
By the first week of May 2020, I began writing a Friday
column, ‘Indic Views’, in The Daily Guardian on the interplay
between civilisation and the Constitution approached
through the lens of decoloniality. The column received
positive feedback for its take on a new approach to
constitutionalism. By early September 2020, after writing
close to 18 pieces under the column, I knew I was ready to
write a book on the convergence between coloniality,
civilisation and the Constitution, by no stretch of
imagination as an expert but as a genuine and committed
learner. The hope was that it would start fresh, timely and
nuanced conversations in and about Bharat on these issues.
And so, in the second week of October 2020, I started
writing this book.
This book is the first of the Bharat trilogy that explores the
influence of European colonial consciousness/coloniality, in
particular its religious and racial roots, on Bharat as the
successor State to the Indic civilisation and the origins of
the Indian Constitution. It lays the foundation for its sequels
by covering the period between the Age of Discovery,
marked by Christopher Columbus’ expedition in 1492, and
the reshaping of Bharat through a British-made constitution
— the Government of India Act of 1919.
The book is split into three sections—Coloniality,
Civilisation, and Constitution—with the third section as the
ultimate object of my attention. The canvas is global in the
first section, and moves towards Bharat-centric analysis of
coloniality/colonial consciousness in the second and third
with greater specificity. Given the abundance of stand-alone
literature on the subjects of the first two sections, I have
limited the scope of the discussion only to the extent it
serves as the foundation for my examination of the
Constitution for coloniality/colonial consciousness in the
third section of this book and its sequels.
In the first section, citing the literature on coloniality, I
broadly discuss the genesis of a Eurocentric/Westernnormative framework starting from the Age of Discovery,
which began with Christopher Columbus’ expedition in
1492, its religious inspiration and racial underpinning, its
relationship with modernity and rationality, its impact on
colonised societies and the rise of decoloniality as a
response. In particular, I have focused on the impact of
coloniality on nature, religion, language, knowledge,
education and law, and the Westphalian origin of a ‘nationstate’. I have also taken the position that, owing to its LatinAmerican origins, decolonial scholarship focusses primarily
on European coloniality, and therefore, its vision of
decoloniality is limited to the same. This means that every
society should identify the forms of colonisation it has been
subjected to, and outline for itself the contours of its
decoloniality.
In the second section of the book, in the backdrop of the
global experience with European coloniality, I have
discussed its impact on Bharat primarily in the realms of
religion, caste, tribe, education and political infrastructure
covering the period between 1600 and 1853. This section
also traces the origins of seemingly universal constructs,
such as ‘toleration’, ‘secularism’ and ‘humanism’, to
Christian political theology. Their subsequent role in
subverting the indigenous Indic consciousness through a
secularised and universalised Reformation is examined. I
have also put forth the concept of Middle Eastern coloniality
since Middle Eastern colonisation of Bharat preceded the
European variant; the underlying idea being that Bharat’s
version of decoloniality must address both forms of
colonialities to preserve its civilisational character in light of
its history and continuing contemporary challenges. Further,
I have explained as to why postcolonialism in Bharat has
served to entrench both forms of colonialities and must,
therefore, give way to decoloniality.
The third section is effectively an extension of the second
but with greater focus on Bharat’s colonial constitutional
journey. This section covers the period between 1858, when
the British Crown directly took charge of Bharat, and 1919,
when the first British-made Constitution for India, that is,
the Government of India Act of 1919, was passed. This
includes international developments leading to the founding
of the League of Nations by the Western powers that
tangibly impacted this journey. The object of this section is
to demonstrate that the ‘civilising’ and evangelising
tendency of the European coloniser, that emanates from his
coloniality, impacted the politico-legal infrastructure
established by him in Bharat, including a constitutional form
of government. The other important object is to underscore
the use of international law by European colonising nations
to universalise their evangelical mission. The discussion in
this section of the book serves as the foundation for the
sequels. The first sequel will cover the crucial period
between 1920 and 1951, when the Constitution of
independent Bharat was framed and adopted, and amended
for the first time in 1951. The second sequel will tentatively
cover the period between 1952 and 1977.
I must caveat this endeavour by stating clearly that by no
means is this analysis of the Constitution comprehensive;
however, it is certainly intended to be a starting point from
a decolonial perspective so that Indic consciousness can
replace colonial consciousness. The attempt has been to
share my learnings in the hope that they trigger a muchneeded round of fresh and honest conversations not just
among the specialists, but even, and especially, among the
non-specialists who seek to make sense of all the noise
being made around the identity of Bharat and its
Constitution. In the process, I have tried my best to let facts
speak for themselves and have attempted to draw only
those inferences and conclusions that are reasonably
supported by literature. Whether or not I have succeeded in
this exercise is, of course, for the readers and posterity to
judge, applying a decolonial lens. As for the tautness and
the rigidity that have crept into my writing over the years,
these are occupational hazards of being a litigator. On the
overall quality of the exercise, I leave it to the readers to
decide if the book reflects my commitment to my journey as
a learner.
Section I
COLONIALITY
1
Colonisation, Colonialism,
Coloniality and Decoloniality:
Language Matters
The First Voyage
The First Voyage, chromolithograph by L. Prang & Co., published by The Prang
Educational Co., Boston, 1893: A scene of Christopher Columbus bidding
farewell to the Queen of Spain on his departure for the New World, 3 August
1492.
In July 2018, the arguments I submitted on behalf of the
female devotees of Swami Ayyappa before a Constitution
Bench of the Supreme Court, supporting the religious
practice of the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, were widely
reported by the national media.1 Based on the tone and
tenor of the reportage, it seemed to me that the reason the
arguments received nationwide traction was due to my
emphasis on the fundamental rights of the Deity as:
1. a ‘person’ within the meaning of Article 25(1) of the
Constitution; and
2. the very fount of the religious practices observed by
and in the Sabarimala Temple, which lent the temple a
denominational/‘sampradayic’2 character within the
Dharmic fold under Article 26.
In my view, I presented a fairly clear, reasonable, and
constitutionally rooted argument in support of the temple’s
practice, especially on the rights of the Deity, which was the
product of the creative and untiring efforts of a dedicated
team that blended the religious with the constitutional. Till
date, I stand by my legal submissions and see no reason to
change my position whatsoever. I say this from a position of
clarity and conviction, especially in light of the subsequent
endorsement of the juristic character of a Deity by a
Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the Shri Ram
Janmabhoomi verdict delivered on 9 November 2019.3
Not surprisingly, given the breathless nature of the news
cycle and the terminal decline of facts and nuance in public
discourse, very few media outlets made an honest attempt
to understand or unbundle that multilayered argument.
Instead, sensationalism defined the headlines as well as the
contents of news reports with few honourable exceptions.
Public reactions to the arguments too were mostly in the
extreme with almost no room for a middle ground, which
perhaps says a lot about the times we live in than my own
arguments. The more predictable jibes like ‘patriarchal’ and
the like did not pique my attention much given the nature of
the matter and the dramatis personae involved, apart from
the sloganeering hue such words have acquired over the
years instead of standing for the genuine concerns and
issues they were meant to represent in the first place.
What I found most interesting was that those who
disagreed with me used words, such as ‘orthodox’,
‘traditional’, ‘anti-rational’, and ‘anti-modern’, to caricature
my position.4 To be clear, I was intrigued not by the criticism
itself, which was expected, but by the use of such words as
pejoratives to criticise a position that supported a religious
institution. After all, I asked myself, was not a religious
institution’s commitment first and foremost to the object of
its establishment, and in the case of a temple to the object
of its consecration and worship, namely the Deity and the
associated practices and traditions? If yes, why was
‘traditional’ being hurled as a pejorative if adherence to
tradition was hardly surprising given the religious nature of
the institution? Did that mean that the word had acquired a
secondary significance that needed to be unpacked and
understood better? During the course of several public
debates after my arguments, I attempted to pull this
particular thread based on my intuitive understanding of the
colonial assumptions underlying the use of such words as
pejoratives.
In fact, in a public debate on the topic ‘A Tug of War
between Constitution and Faith’ held at the Chennai
International Centre on 7 September 2018, I specifically
spoke of the need to remove the colonial lens while trying to
assess and evaluate the constitutionality of indigenous and
Indic religious practices, such as the one followed by the
Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple.5 That said, it was only after I
started reading the literature on coloniality/colonial
consciousness that I understood the root cause better from
the standpoint of an articulable and articulated framework
which underscored the relationship between coloniality,
modernity and rationality.6 For the first time, I understood,
based on the literature on the subject that terms, such as
‘modern’ and ‘rational’, which we use casually and, dare I
say, unthinkingly in our daily conversations about the
contemporary relevance of Indic social and religious
practices as well as in relation to the societal structures of
Bharat—had deeper meanings that could be traced to their
European colonial origins.7 The judgement and sanctimony
inherent in the use of such terms became apparent to me
after my exposure to coloniality. But then, what exactly is
coloniality, and how is it different from or related to
colonialism and colonisation? What is the specific historical
context in which these terms must be located, and is their
use limited by and to such context?
Colonisation, as understood by scholars, refers to a
process or phenomenon by which people belonging to a
nation establish colonies in other societies while retaining
their bonds with the parent nation, and exploit the colonised
societies to benefit the parent nation and themselves.
Simply put, the process of establishing colonies is called
colonisation and the policy of using colonisation to increase
one’s footprint is called colonialism. At least four forms of
colonialism are recognised, namely exploitation colonialism,
settler colonialism, surrogate colonialism and internal
colonialism, the first two being the most well-known. In
exploitation colonialism, the colonising group treats the
colonised territory primarily as a resource to further its
economic growth and increase the dominion under its
control without actually settling in the colony. In settler
colonialism, the colonisers not only retain their bonds with
their parent nation but also settle in large numbers in the
colony and take over all aspects of the colonised society,
thereby reducing the natives to a secondary status.
‘Coloniality’ refers to the fundamental element or thought
process that informs the policy of colonialism and advances
the subtler end goal of colonisation, namely colonisation of
the mind through complete domination of the culture and
worldview of the colonised society. In short, coloniality is the
fount of the policy of colonialism that results in colonisation,
whose ultimate objective is to mould the subjugated society
in the image of the coloniser. Therefore, implicit in the use
of coloniality is ‘cultural coloniality’, which represents its allencompassing character. This process of culturally
dominating the colonised society may be termed
‘colonialisation’, which is different from the overt process of
colonisation. Although the world has seen other forms of
colonisation (and hence, coloniality) prior to the European
version, which the literature on coloniality acknowledges,
the use of the term ‘coloniality’ in the literature is primarily
with reference to European colonisation. In other words,
unless indicated otherwise, ‘coloniality’ means not just
‘cultural coloniality’ but ‘European cultural coloniality’, while
the response of erstwhile colonised societies (primarily,
Latin American) to European cultural coloniality in order to
reclaim their agency over their consciousness and
subjectivities has been termed ‘decoloniality’.
Scholars agree that every society has the right to define
coloniality and, therefore, decoloniality for itself based on its
own history and experience.8 However, the general
consensus appears to be that of all the sources and forms of
colonialism and coloniality the world has witnessed, none
equals the European version (specifically Western European
colonialism) in its reach, omnipresence and recorded
longevity, which continues to affect both erstwhile colonised
societies and the rest of the world.9 To be clear, in discussing
European colonialism and coloniality, the literature includes
Western imperialism since the latter is seen as the
descendant of and the successor to European colonialism.
Consequently, scholars have directed their energies at
understanding the coloniality of European colonialism as
well as its successor, Western imperialism, both of which
have been collectively referred to as Eurocentrism or
Western-centrism or Western-normativism or ‘North Atlantic
abstract universal fictionalism’.10
The origins of Eurocentrism spawned by European
colonialism and coloniality have been traced to what has
been referred to as ‘the Age of Discovery/Exploration’ in the
fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus set out in
1492 to ‘discover’ the ‘New World’, namely the nonChristian world.11 Columbus’ voyage marked the beginning
of European colonisation and heralded a new chapter in
European history, which led to the emergence of new
conceptions of time, space and subjectivity that had
tectonic implications for that continent and, most
importantly, for ‘others’, that is, the rest of the world. In
fact, the investigative spirit of ‘The Renaissance’, which is
believed to have started in the fourteenth century, is
credited to have laid the foundations for the Age of
Discovery. The Age of Discovery significantly overlapped
with The Renaissance, which was followed by ‘The
Reformation’, leading to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648,
which was, in turn, followed by what is treated as the zenith
of European civilisation—‘The Age of Enlightenment/Reason’
and ‘The Industrial Revolution’.
The use of ‘The’ for each of these essentially European
milestones by Europeans and the rest of the world is
significant since it demonstrates the universalisation of
European history as the history of humanity, in particular its
‘modern’ history. Specifically, the period between the
fifteenth and nineteenth centuries is believed to have given
birth to ‘modernity’ and several ‘modern’ concepts and
ideas that are unconsciously accepted not only by Europe
but also the rest of the world, including erstwhile colonised
societies, which proudly, albeit unfortunately, base their
contemporary discourse on such ‘modern’ ideas. These
‘modern’ ideas have significantly affected and altered
conceptions of nature, universe, human agency, religion,
race, language, political organisation of societies, the nature
of State, its relationship with religion, conceptions of law
and human rights, treatment of genders, science, notions of
development and more across the globe. During the period
of colonisation, European provincialism on each of these
facets of life was introduced, rather imposed, and
universalised in colonised societies, thereby replacing
indigenous worldviews. Since all of this has been traced by
scholars to Columbus’ expedition of 1492, the expedition
and its significance for world history has engendered a
raging debate.
One school of thought, the ‘modern’ school, believes that
Columbus’ voyage was and must be seen as a ‘glorious and
heroic achievement’ that marked the beginning of the
Christian West’s ‘destiny’ to ‘liberate’ non-Christian
indigenous societies from their wretched existence.12 The
second school of thought, the ‘postmodern’ school, is seen
as a response to Europe’s claims over modernity and rejects
the grand narratives woven around it. However, this
school’s opposition to modernism is largely in the realm of
culture.
The third school, namely the postcolonial school, which
enjoys a significant overlap with postmodern thought and
even draws from it, too rejects the universalising claims of
Eurocentrism albeit in the political realm; however, it uses
the very same tools as the coloniser instead of
deconstructing and questioning colonial presumptions.13 For
instance, while the postcolonial school focuses on the local,
it tries to universalise the local, thereby falling prey to the
same universalising tendency of colonialism. In other words,
the postcolonial school certainly changes the content of the
discussion but not the terms of engagement or the
framework of the discussion, having imbibed the European
penchant for universalisation.14 The limitations of the
postcolonial school, among other things, lie in its inability to
see and comprehend the continued contemporary impact of
colonial structures even after decolonisation.
The fourth school, namely the decolonial school, akin to
postcolonialism,
challenges
European
universalisms,
particularly in the political realm. It too believes that
Columbus’ voyage marked the beginning of one of the most
repressive, bloody, racist and genocidal chapters ever
witnessed in human history that led to the extinction of
several cultures and, critically, wreaked havoc on nature on
an unprecedented scale. However, where the decolonial
school differs from postcolonial thought is its identification
of the element of ‘coloniality’, which, according to it,
informed European colonisation that began with the Age of
Discovery. According to decolonial thought, European
coloniality gave birth to the ‘cultural complex’ of ‘modernity’
and ‘rationality’, apart from the ‘modern’ categories of
religion and race. Importantly, according to the decolonial
school, ‘postcolonialism’ gives the impression that the
colonial
mindset
or
consciousness
ended
with
decolonisation, when, in fact, it has survived decolonisation
and
continues
to
impact
decolonised/‘independent’
societies.
Also, the decolonial school rejects the totalising
universalist claims of Europeanism in a much more balanced
fashion. That is, instead of treating the European position as
the sole universal benchmark, decoloniality prefers to treat
it as but one of the options or subjectivities within the global
pool of thought. Therefore, it rejects Europe’s monopoly
over time, space and subjectivity. It is important to
understand these critical distinctions because it is easy to
conflate and confuse the decolonial position with the
postcolonial. Decolonial scholars have gone a step further to
claim that while postcolonialism is a state of affairs,
decoloniality is a state of mind just as coloniality is. These
finer aspects will be discussed in some detail in the ensuing
portions of this section of the book after the examination of
coloniality as conceptualised and understood by the
decolonial school.
According to the decolonial school, the celebration of the
Age of Discovery by proponents of Europeanism, that is,
European supremacism, is understandable because the
period was preceded by the Dark Ages for a millennium for
Europe. However, since the rest of the world did not live in
the Dark Ages prior to the fifteenth century, the celebration
of the Age of Discovery by several erstwhile colonised
societies is truly tragic and naïve. This is because it shows
that such societies have not even scratched the surface to
understand the racial and religious supremacist character of
the Age of Discovery and the European milestones that
followed it, including the Enlightenment. They are oblivious
to the impact of the Enlightenment on their ability to
evaluate their own histories and cultures sans the shame,
judgement and sanctimony induced by it. Decoloniality,
therefore, seeks to restore the dignity of indigeneities and
their subjectivities by unshackling them from the absolutism
of European coloniality. These are the broad premises that
inform decolonial scholarship which must be borne in mind
even
while
discussing
regionor
country-specific
experiences with European colonialism and coloniality. It is
these foundational premises of the decolonial school that
warrant attention and make its understanding imperative for
decolonised societies which are still grappling with
coloniality.
Interestingly, decolonial scholarship seems to have
emanated from Latin America, which has contributed
significantly to the understanding of coloniality and the
response to it. In fact, the better part of the scholarship
largely revolves around the Americas, which includes North
America, South/Latin America and the Caribbean, followed
by Africa. One would have expected Asian countries to lead
the charge on this front given that the continent is home to
living civilisations and indigenous cultural systems that have
survived several forms of colonialism, not just the European
variant. In fact, the continued survival of these living
civilisations makes them the prime targets of coloniality in
its present form, namely Western imperialism, and this
makes the Asian voice all the more important from the
standpoint of currency. And yet, Asia is not at the forefront
of decolonial scholarship, which could indicate a deepseated, continuing and unconscious coloniality in Asian
societies, notwithstanding the survival of their cultural
systems. This, as we shall see, is attributable to the
predominance of postcolonial thought in Asia and the Middle
East, especially Bharat and Palestine.
Also, the literature that exists on Asia in relation to
coloniality from a decolonial perspective, even where it
presents a subjective and contextual view of the Asian
experience with coloniality, appears to imitate the work on
the Americas and Africa. It is true that there are broad
similarities in the colonial experience across continents,
given the near-identical aims, actions and underlying
coloniality of European colonisers regardless of their
nationalities. However, this should not have limited voices
from Asia or voices that discuss Asia from capturing the
diversity and peculiarity of their colonial experience better
so as to contribute to the still-nascent pool of decolonial
thought. Such an endeavour is overdue and would, in fact,
be consistent with decolonial thought since a universalising
approach to decoloniality would defeat its stated objective.
In other words, decoloniality, by definition, accepts and
underscores the need for subjectivity, contextuality and
local resistance to abstract universal definitions. This is
precisely why societies and civilisations of Asia can and
must craft for themselves their own definitions of coloniality
and decoloniality without being fettered or limited in any
manner by the experience and conclusions of the Americas
and Africa.
One of the reasons I believe that the Asian experience
could impact the way colonialism, coloniality and
decoloniality are perceived is because, while almost the
entirety of the Americas and close to half of Africa have
been converted to the religion of the European coloniser
(and about 40 per cent to Islam), this is not the case with
vast swathes of Asia. In stark contrast, the practise of
precolonial faith systems by quite a few countries of Asia,
such as Bharat, makes them ‘living indigenous civilisations’
to a significant extent. This makes a critical difference since
decolonial scholarship, while being aware of the theological
origins of European coloniality, appears to focus primarily on
its racial aspects. This could be because in the geography of
origin of decolonial thought, namely the Americas, colonised
societies have become almost entirely Christian. In other
words, the preoccupation of decolonial scholarship with race
and its reluctance to address religion with the same degree
of candour may be attributed to the fact that the regions
that have produced much of the scholarship on coloniality
so far, follow the religion of the coloniser, namely
Christianity. Their demographic reality, perhaps, offers an
explanation as to their gaze being more alive to race than to
religion, since reclaiming their indigenous religious identities
may seem impossible despite having embarked on their
decolonial journeys. Given the huge Christian settler colonial
populations in the Americas in particular, the numbers may
not even be conducive for indigenous peoples even if they
wanted to revert to the faith of their ancestors. And if this
were not enough, pragmatic considerations, such as the
highly organised and evangelical nature of Christianity and
its status as a global majority, have a direct and real
bearing on the ability of any erstwhile non-Christian
colonised society to reclaim and return to its roots.
These complex realities may explain the predominant
focus of decolonial scholarship on race, as opposed to both
religion and race. In my view, the Critical Theory of Race
(popularly acronymised as CRT for Critical Race Theory), in
some ways, may be treated as the precursor to decolonial
thought.15 This could explain the reasons for the scholarship
on coloniality being centred on race, which continues to
shine a spotlight on the race consciousness of the coloniser,
its direct impact on the nature of colonial power, the
manner of its exercise and its myriad all-pervasive
manifestations. This is not to deny the existence of some
stellar growing scholarship on coloniality that expressly
brings religion, specifically Christianity, within its ambit,
thereby acknowledging its role in European colonisation and
in engendering race consciousness. That said, subject to
correction, to the extent I have read the literature on
coloniality, a significant cross-section of the scholarship
continues to speak around the issue of religion, barring a
handful of scholars, which could be a hangover from the
religion-reticent legacy of Critical Race Theory.
To be fair, this could also be because decolonial thought is
relatively recent and, therefore, the Asian perspective, in
particular the Indian perspective, could do a lot to address
this reticence of the existing scholarship on coloniality in
relation to religion without being dissuaded by it. This is
because, unlike the Americas and Africa, since Asia has
managed to preserve its non-Christian character to a
considerable degree, its contemporary everyday encounters
with coloniality are, in a way, representative of European
coloniality’s unfinished business in Asia. In fact, the active
local resistance offered by the indigenous faith systems of
Asia, in particular Bharat, to coloniality and its underlying
evangelical motivations makes the study of coloniality all
the more relevant and critical to their existence and
survival.
Notwithstanding the reluctance of decolonial scholarship
to discuss the role of religion—a reluctance that is hopefully
diminishing—I believe that the societies of Asia and the rest
of the world do have a lot to learn from the American and
African experience with coloniality. After all, the aims and
modus operandi of European colonisation were similar, and
were tempered only by the local conditions and the degree
of resistance offered by different indigenous societies. This
could at least present contemporary Asian societies with a
decent starting point in their respective original decolonial
journeys. It is also important that the Asians ask themselves
whether the decolonial approach is the better approach for
them in comparison to the postcolonial approach. As stated
earlier, this question will be discussed in some detail in this
section after discussing the various facets of coloniality,
including its OET and racial foundations.
2
The Discovery of Coloniality and
the Birth of Decoloniality
Destruction of the Indies, 1552
Depiction of Christopher Columbus’ soldiers chopping the hands off Arawak
Indians who failed to meet the mining quota in Bartolomé de Las Casas’
Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. The print was made by two
Flemish artists (who did not actually witness these atrocities)—Joos van Winghe
was the designer and Theodor de Bry, the engraver.
At the turn of the twentieth century, after close to five
centuries of European colonialism, thanks to the ebb and
flow of history, the native elites of colonised societies began
asserting themselves. From seeking political autonomy as
dominions within colonising empires, they gradually
progressed to demanding freedom as sovereign and
independent ‘nation-states’ that could write their own
destinies just as colonising nations could. The aspiration of
the colonised to be sovereign nation-states on European
lines has been attributed to European coloniality1 owing to
close to two centuries of unbroken colonialism. Scholars are
of the view that coloniality was entrenched in colonised
societies through the politico-legal infrastructure of
European colonisers as well as the education system
introduced by them, which shaped the thinking of the native
elites. In fact, the early introduction of colonial education
systems in colonised societies and the replacement of
indigenous epistemologies and their structures ensured that
coloniality informed their present, shaped their ideas of the
future and, critically, coloured their vision of the past.2
Depending on the inherent vitality and resilience of
colonised cultures, the extent of internalisation of coloniality
in the consciousness of dominated societies became truly
evident when even their quests for political independence
from the coloniser were based on the very framework
introduced by him.
Most colonised societies did not realise that their entire
worldview had changed, for they could not see beyond
political independence and aspired for freedom to govern
themselves, albeit using the same values and institutions
they had ‘inherited’ from the European coloniser. In other
words, owing to coloniality, the vision of independence of
most native elites was limited to the politico-economic
sphere, namely decolonisation, but did not include
decolonialisation because they accepted the European
worldview on the all-important cultural front as well.3
Therefore, all that the colonialised native elites sought by
way of ‘independence’ was the agency to be able to write
their own futures but using the ideas, rules, tools and
institutions of the erstwhile coloniser, which were designed
for top-down imposition on a conquered and subjugated
people in order to ‘civilise’ them.4
While coloniality is a fairly plausible explanation for the
quest of nation-statehood of colonised societies, a more
pragmatic way of looking at it could be that the global
presence of European colonising empires, and therefore, the
global spread of colonial politico-economic ideas and
institutions, may have made it inconceivable and infeasible
for colonised societies to revert to their precolonial forms of
political and social organisation.5 They may have been
genuinely apprehensive of being isolated in a largely
Europeanised and integrated world if they reverted to their
precolonial political institutions. In today’s telecom parlance,
this can be compared with the situation of a mobile network
operator, who, in the interest of interoperability, must
comply with the technological standards laid down by the
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI),
failing which, the former’s mobile phone users cannot
interact with the users of other telecom operators that
comply with the ETSI standards. Crudely speaking, similar
considerations would have weighed on most colonised
societies upon achieving political independence since the
world’s economy revolved around the West.
Therefore, given the omnipresence of European politicoeconomic and cultural coloniality, perhaps the only viable
option available to the newly decolonised societies was to
embrace the political structures, institutions and lexicon left
behind by the coloniser to avoid the prospect of
disintegration, annexation, anarchy and global isolation.
However, broadly speaking, decolonised societies fell into
two categories. In the first category, those societies that
had a strong sense of indigenous consciousness, or
whatever remained of it after centuries of colonialism,
sought to compensate for continuing with European political
legacy by infusing the edifice with ideas drawn from their
cultures or by customising European definitions to suit their
cultural palate. In the second category, those societies that
were helmed by colonialised native elites became crucibles
for a constant struggle between such elites and the native
masses that had been relegated to the status of
‘subalterns’, and pushed to the margins of the process of
nation-building. In this category of societies, on the one
hand, the colonialised Europeanised native elites had
stepped into the shoes of the coloniser to recast the native
masses and the society in the European mould; on the other
hand, the native masses were torn between the aspiration
projected by the rulers to ‘catch up’ with the West and the
opportunity history had finally presented them with to
reclaim their roots, consciousness and identity. It was in the
latter category of societies that coloniality manifested itself
in all its glory, especially in the spheres of political thought,
environment, language, religion, law, gender, economics,
production of knowledge, education and even popular
culture.6
To add to the woes of decolonised societies, while the era
of colonialism was over, its place was occupied by an even
more
worthy
successor—Western
imperialism—which
inherited and expanded the legacy of coloniality. As scholars
have pointed out, Western imperialism has proved to be a
much more effective derivative of colonialism since it
extended the territorial reach and depth of coloniality. Not
only is the relationship of Western imperialism with other
cultures the same as that of colonialism, namely
‘colonisation of the imagination of the dominated’, it has
proved to be vastly more successful than colonialism in
creating well-networked global power structures and
totalising sub-frameworks that have sustained and
advanced coloniality.7 This is in stark contrast to colonialism
which was much more territorial.
From the standpoint of preserving the continuity of
coloniality, the Western-normative framework has delivered
all the benefits of colonialism and more, without having to
assume the same degree of burden and responsibility as
colonialism, and with the added benefit of plausible
deniability. While colonialism was more visible and direct
because it required the subjugation of a population, the
subterranean nature of Western imperialism has ensured
that the dominated society aspires to become part of the
erstwhile coloniser’s social fabric after decolonisation. As a
consequence, scholars agree that coloniality remains the
most prevalent and powerful form of domination in the
world. This could not have become possible without
sufficient investment by the coloniser in the political,
religious, knowledge and legal systems of colonised
societies, which were carried forward by decolonised
societies.
Until the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, that is,
even after close to four decades of decolonisation, there
was not enough rigorous scholarship that made sense of the
nature of colonial power and its continuing impact on the
life and polity of decolonised nations. The Cold War had
demonstrated that despite decolonisation, erstwhile
colonies were caught in the crossfire between superpowers
who sought to dominate the world. Even those who claimed
to be non-aligned, could not remain uninfluenced by the
Cold War and its dynamics. It was during this period in the
late 1980s that Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano
presented the concept of coloniality of power, specifically
European power, which he distinguished from colonialism,
as the very fount of colonialism. In other words, colonisation
is the process, colonialism is the policy and coloniality is the
mindset or the thought that underpins or drives colonialism.
Coloniality, according to Quijano, is the totalising thought
behind colonialism, which monopolises time, space and
subjectivity, and makes all of them the exclusive preserve of
the European coloniser. Quijano and other scholars, such as
Sylvia Wynter, Walter D. Mignolo, Catherine E. Walsh,
Nelson Maldonado-Torres and Ramón Grosfoguel, have
contributed to the scholarship on the pathology of
coloniality, its universalist claims and its all-pervasive
character. Not only did they analyse the problem, they
offered an option/alternative, namely decoloniality, which
moved away from the model presented by the postmodern
and postcolonial schools. Decoloniality has been described
as the movement for reclamation and restoration of
indigeneity and its subjectivities. In hindsight, it could be
said that the existence of omnipresent coloniality and the
constantly shrinking space for indigeneity meant that at
some point indigeneity would resist and talk back to
coloniality, and seek to reclaim its consciousness and space.
However, since it took several decades after decolonisation
for the natives to find their voice and speak the language of
decoloniality, it is important to understand the true nature
of coloniality, its motivations, underpinnings, invisible yet
ever-present devices and its impact on the entirety of
indigenous worldviews. Not only would this help us
understand the ‘why’ of decoloniality, it would also help us
make sense of the ‘how’, rather a plurality of them.
On this front, Quijano’s work represents the early
pioneering years of the scholarship on coloniality when its
primary focus was the colonial character of European power.
Quijano was of the view that race was central to European
coloniality and that there was an inextricable link between
European/Western coloniality and modernity/rationality. He
consciously used Europe and the West interchangeably
owing to the European foundations of the Western
worldview and civilisation. His diagnosis was that race
consciousness and the introduction of the ‘cultural complex’
of modernity/rationality were the twin pillars of European
coloniality or simply coloniality. These observations and
propositions were based on his critical examination of the
impact of European colonialism and coloniality on the
societies and cultures of what is known as Latin America
today. He identified that the relationship between European
colonisers and the colonised societies of Latin America was
one of ‘direct political, social and cultural domination’, which
he called ‘Eurocentered colonialism’. The European
coloniser consciously believed in the ‘biological and
structural superiority’ of his race, which, in the mind of the
coloniser, distinguished him from the colonised. This belief,
which was the premise of the colonial power structure and a
figment of the coloniser’s self-important worldview, was
legitimised as being ‘objective’, or ‘scientific’, or ‘rational’
and therefore, ‘natural’. This evidences the use of scientism
by the coloniser to perpetuate, normalise and legitimise
stereotypes about the colonised in order to justify
discrimination. In fact, the ‘scientific’ racial consciousness of
the coloniser led to race-based stratification of colonised
populations across the world, and created specific forms of
discrimination which remained in those societies long after
decolonisation.
As part of the larger aim of stratification of the colonised
society, the coloniser subtly co-opted dominant groups or
the elite from the colonised society into the colonial power
structure to gradually wean them away from the rest of their
people. This was done by inventing pseudo-scientific racial
theories to create fissures in the social structures of the
native society, while simultaneously teaching them the
ways of European culture. Quijano’s seminal contribution
was his acute observation that the dominant elites of
colonised native societies were acculturated not just into
the colonial power structure but also the European
worldview through the introduction of the cultural complex,
namely ‘European modernity/rationality’, that is, imputing
Europeanness to anything that is new or novel, or
contemporary, or relevant and rational. Modernity and
rationality, as introduced and employed by the European
coloniser, therefore, represented (and still represent) the
weaponisation of time and appropriation of the very idea of
‘reason’ by the European coloniser and his successor, the
Western imperialist, who negate and deny the histories and
the lived experiences of entire civilisations from the moment
of their arrival.8 This gave birth to the process of cultural
colonisation and the phenomenon or state of mind known as
‘cultural coloniality’. In a nutshell, coloniality refers to a
meta phenomenon that affects the mental constitution of
the colonised society and reorients its entire worldview to
bring it in line with the coloniser’s by distorting,
stereotyping, eliminating or acculturating the indigenous
worldview.
The effect of the introduction of the modernity/rationality
complex into the culture of colonised societies was that the
entirety of native worldviews, especially their ontological,
theological and epistemological systems, were ‘otherised’.
That is, the indigenous worldview became the ‘other’ to the
‘modern and rational mainstream’ and had to prove itself on
the judgemental anvils of the latter. The native worldview
could never succeed at proving its ‘modern’ relevance
because the coloniality/modernity/rationality complex was
designed either to exclude indigenous perspectives, or
acculturate it in case it happened to be of value, without
crediting the indigenous perspective. According to Quijano,
this is where the true genius of the European coloniser lay—
not in the brutal economic and political repression of the
native, but in successfully projecting his way of life as the
aspirational ideal. The blanket consumption of this idea by
the dominant native elites served to alienate them from the
rest of the colonised society. As a consequence, if a fault
line existed in the colonised society prior to the arrival of
the European coloniser, the active co-option of the elites in
the dominating power structure as well as the worldview of
the coloniser only served to deepen the fault line. If a fault
line did not exist hitherto, it was consciously created. In
either case, the fault lines remained even after
decolonisation as the legacy of colonialism.
That said, the coloniser was not content with the co-option
of only the dominant elites among the natives but was
interested in converting the entire native society to his way
of life. To this end, Quijano pointed out that while the
coloniser saw the colonised society as an economic resource
to feed on, he also indulged in the systematic and extensive
repression of indigenous ideas, beliefs, images and
knowledge, including the systems of production of
knowledge. This deprived the colonised society of its ability
to respond culturally, even if it did not have the wherewithal
to resist politically or militarily. Since most native elites that
were at the helm of the centres of culture and production of
knowledge had surrendered their agency over the
indigenous worldview, the masses too gradually followed
suit. The cumulative effect was the deep embedding of
coloniality in the consciousness of the colonised society, so
much so that it started believing that it had been defeated
because of its cultural moorings. To the colonised and now
colonialised native, it seemed that the only way to regain
dignity was by adopting European culture and thought
processes, which included the European way of achieving
economic prosperity, that is, by exploiting nature. This
disruption of the critical relationship between indigenous
societies and nature came to affect the entire world.
Apart from the disastrous impact on nature, the
universalisation of European culture made it the benchmark
against which all other cultures had to judge their selfworth. In the process, the modernity/rationality complex was
entrenched in every colonised society and reinforced in the
colonising society as well.9 The direct and intended
consequence of coloniality and the introduction of the
modernity/rationality complex was the creation of
supposedly universal standards for morals, ethics, religion,
language,
knowledge,
scientific
temper,
political
organisation, nationhood, individual rights and more—in
short, culture and civilisation.10
This complex did not die with decolonisation but remains
alive and kicking even today, just as coloniality is. After all,
as scholars have identified, coloniality goes hand in hand
with modernity/rationality and vice versa. As long as
coloniality is alive, despite its outward proclamations of
open-mindedness, dialogue and diversity, the colonial DNA
of modernity and rationality will continue to actively resist
and oust indigeneity. It will staunchly refuse to accord
indigeneity the respect of an equal and will continue to use
time and ‘reason’ as weapons to question the very
relevance of the indigenous point of view, because the
underlying premise—indigeneity is racially inferior—has not
changed.
The
successful
universalisation
of
the
modernity/rationality complex is further evidenced by the
fact that neither word is prefaced with ‘European’ anymore
despite the entire edifice being Eurocentric.
Interestingly, in her paper titled ‘Early Modernity: The
History of a Word’, Patricia Seed, who specialises in early
modern and colonial European eras, traced the origins of the
word ‘modern’ to the sixth century ce, when it was first used
in northern Italy.11 This was when the Roman Empire still
existed but northern Italy was conquered and ruled by
Germanic Ostrogoths. According to Seed, the word ‘modern’
made its debut in the context of architecture when the
Ostrogothic ruler of northern Italy encouraged wealthy
Roman families to undertake reconstruction of public
buildings at their private expense. The outcome was that
the new buildings had a different architectural style that
distinguished them from those built under Roman imperial
rule. Praising the contribution of one particular family for its
reconstruction of the Theatre of Pompey, the scribe of the
Ostrogothic ruler called the family ‘a careful imitator of
antiquity and the noblest founder of modern works’
(translation). In this context, according to Seed, the word
modern simply meant ‘different’ without any value being
imputed to it, neither positive nor negative.
Subsequently, for a brief period, the word doubled as a
synonym for ‘new’, thereby bringing in the element of time.
In other words, the word ‘modern’ was not only a reference
to the time that something belonged to, it was also
importantly a reference to the period it did not belong to.
Seed revealed that around the early fourteenth century,
‘modern’ was significantly used in Dante’s Divine Comedy,
wherein it was a synonym for ‘contemporary’. It was used to
compare the present with the past, with the present faring
poorly, making the use of ‘modern’ a veiled criticism of the
present. According to Seed, it was only almost a century
later, around the 1430s, that ‘modern’ was used in Southern
Romance languages to show the past in poor light and
congratulate the present.
As for English, Scottish poet William Dunbar is credited for
using it first in his poems, wherein ‘modern’ was used to
portray the present in positive light while remaining tightlipped about the past. The adversarial pitting of the past
and the present with the balance tilting in favour of the
latter occurred in English in the sixteenth century when
‘modern’ meant ‘someone who takes part in the tastes and
cares of his age, and is opposed to all conservatism’. In a
nutshell, positive connotations, such as open-mindedness,
newness and relevance, were imputed to ‘modern’, and
negative stereotypes, such as parochiality, outdatedness
and rigidity, were associated with ‘conservative/traditional’.
That this imputation coincided with the period around which
European powers had established colonies across the globe
was no coincidence. This is evidenced from the established
nexus between coloniality and ‘modernity’, both of which
are undergirded by notions of anthropological superiority, as
articulated by Quijano.
Quijano identified that the process of classification of the
world on racial lines by the European coloniser led to sub-
humanisation and dehumanisation of several communities
depending on their perceived worth in the eyes of the
coloniser. The ramifications of such a classification included
geographic identities acquiring racial connotations, specific
skin tones being associated with the respective races of the
coloniser and the colonised, and the creation of a new
structure of division of labour and resources. Each of these
strands ultimately contributed to the creation of serfdoms
and slavery, notions of master (or superior) and slave
(inferior) races, and notions of the ‘manifest destiny’ of
some to rule over others and the fate of others to be
perpetually ruled. Lines were drawn between the West and
the East, the ‘civilised’ and the ‘primitive’, the scientific and
the superstitious, the rational and the irrational, modern and
traditional,
historical
and
mythological—essentially,
European and non-European. Even where the coloniser (‘the
Occident’) begrudgingly admitted that there was indeed
culture and civilisation outside of Europe, he resorted to
stereotyping and exotification by calling it ‘the Orient’.
This racial classification of the entirety of humanity to
subserve colonial interests forms the foundation of the
Eurocentric world order. In fact, Quijano highlighted the
relationship between European colonialism and globalisation
that resulted in Western hegemony over all of human
experience. Critically, this included control over all forms of
subjectivity, culture and production of knowledge. Quijano
did not mince words in calling the phenomenon of
globalisation the ‘culmination of a process that began with
the
constitution
of
America
and
colonial/modern
Eurocentered capitalism as a new global power’. Race and,
therefore, coloniality remain as relevant today as they were
in the colonial era, notwithstanding globalisation’s professed
love for the concept of a ‘global village’. Simply put,
globalisation, contrary to popular perception, is not a friend
of diversity, nor is it a melting pot of cultures. On the
contrary, it denotes the gradual and unconscious
eradication of heterogeneity, more particularly, the diversity
of indigeneity, and is proof of existence of common
denominators of culture and civilisation for the entire world,
which are distinctly Western-normative in character.
Quijano also argued that any attempts to obfuscate
history by taking the position that modernity was not
European but was merely a reference to newness of ideas,
would be tantamount to turning a blind eye to the
colonialism of the last five centuries, which had lent specific
meanings to modernity and rationality that are distinctly
European in nature. In other words, the totalising effect of
European colonisation since the Age of Discovery has given
the word ‘modernity’ a distinct historical connotation that is
impossible to ignore given the continuing presence of
coloniality.12 Critically, Quijano acknowledged that while
colonialism may have existed in different parts of the world
in different forms prior to European colonisation, none of
them compared to European colonialism’s vision of global
domination. This is because European coloniality required
the entire world to share a common perspective on the
entirety of human history and experience.
It is precisely for this reason that it is impossible to limit
the impact of European colonialism to any one particular
facet of life. The intended goal of European colonialism and
the outcome was global cultural hegemony, which includes
a subject that has become a sensitive one to broach due to
deeply ingrained unconscious coloniality—the religious
origins and impact of European colonialism on indigenous
onto-epistemological structures and processes, simply put,
their spirituality and faith. Given the catch-all use of
‘culture’ in the literature on coloniality, there is a tendency
to assume that colonialism was driven only by race,
economics and hunger for power. Fortunately, and
refreshingly, despite the extensive focus on race due to the
legacy of the Critical Theory of Race, there exists literature
which discusses the religious motivations that spurred race-
based colonialism and its impact on indigenous ontoepistemological systems. This facet of colonialism is
especially relevant to those decolonised societies that have
not been fully converted to the European coloniser’s faith
and, therefore, continue to face and resist coloniality’s
expansionist advances even today.
In his work on race and coloniality, Quijano did touch upon
the ways in which colonised societies were forced to learn
and adopt the culture of the coloniser so as to aid the
process of colonisation, which included learning both the
material and metaphysical, specifically Judeo-Christian
religious traditions. That said, in my view, the Christian
character of Christopher Columbus’ expansionist voyage of
‘discovery’ was dealt with more explicitly by Jamaican writer
and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter, Walter D. Mignolo
(Argentine semiotician and professor at Duke University,
North Carolina), Nelson Maldonado-Torres (a professor of
Latino and Caribbean Studies) and others,13 who have
contributed to the understanding of the direct role of the
Christian religion in European colonisation and its effect on
the race consciousness of the coloniser.
Wynter drew attention to the reconceptualisation of
geography and the very meaning of ‘humanity’ triggered by
the Age of Discovery.14 She argued that since the Age of
Discovery altered conceptions of time, space and
subjectivity, it also altered notions of empathy for the
‘other’, since humans have always used time, space and
subjectivity to make sense of themselves and their
surroundings. This meant that the Age of Discovery also led
to new conceptions of life and death, and legal agency over
them. In a nutshell, European coloniality/modernity affected
not just ontology, theology, epistemology and anthropology,
it also birthed new notions of ethics (and therefore, affected
education), and defined both politics and policy.
Wynter was also forthright in her view that the Age of
Discovery, evangelisation and colonisation went hand in
hand, and credited that period with ‘secularisation of the
key elements of the Christian episteme’, which meant that
what was valid within the Christian worldview was deemed
‘good’ for the entire world, and those that did not conform
had to convert or perish. Her views are certainly supported
by the fact that a Papal Bull called Inter Caetera was issued
by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, which authorised Spain and
Portugal to colonise, convert and enslave non-Christians.
Following are the contents of the Bull, which make for an
eye-opening read:
Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the
illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ,
Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ,
Isabella, queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, and
Granada, health and apostolic benediction. Among other
works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished
of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our
times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian
religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and
spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that
barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the
faith itself. Wherefore inasmuch as by the favor of divine
clemency, we, though of insufficient merits, have been
called to this Holy See of Peter, recognizing that as true
Catholic kings and princes, such as we have known you
always to be, and as your illustrious deeds already
known to almost the whole world declare, you not only
eagerly desire but with every effort, zeal, and diligence,
without regard to hardships, expenses, dangers, with
the shedding even of your blood, are laboring to that
end; recognizing also that you have long since
dedicated to this purpose your whole soul and all your
endeavors—as witnessed in these times with so much
glory to the Divine Name in your recovery of the
kingdom of Granada from the yoke of the Saracens—we
therefore are rightly led, and hold it as our duty, to
grant you even of our own accord and in your favor
those things whereby with effort each day more hearty
you may be enabled for the honor of God himself and
the spread of the Christian rule to carry forward your
holy and praiseworthy purpose so pleasing to immortal
God.
We have indeed learned that you, who for a long time
had intended to seek out and discover certain islands
and mainlands remote and unknown and not hitherto
discovered by others, to the end that you might bring to
the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the
Catholic faith their residents and inhabitants, having
been up to the present time greatly engaged in the
siege and recovery of the kingdom itself of Granada
were unable to accomplish this holy and praiseworthy
purpose; but the said kingdom having at length been
regained, as was pleasing to the Lord, you, with the wish
to fulfill your desire, chose our beloved son, Christopher
Columbus, a man assuredly worthy and of the highest
recommendations and fitted for so great an
undertaking, whom you furnished with ships and men
equipped for like designs, not without the greatest
hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent
quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and
islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had
sailed; and they at length, with divine aid and with the
utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered
certain very remote islands and even mainlands that
hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein
dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as
reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh.
Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these
very peoples living in the said islands and countries
believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem
sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and
be trained in good morals.
And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name
of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be
introduced into the said countries and islands. Also, on
one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said
Christopher has already caused to be put together and
built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed
as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who
are to make search for other remote and unknown
islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries
already discovered are found gold, spices, and very
many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities.
Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes,
after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of
the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the
fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory,
you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to
bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands
with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to
the Catholic faith. Hence, heartily commending in the
Lord this your holy and praiseworthy purpose, and
desirous that it be duly accomplished, and that the
name of our Savior be carried into those regions, we
exhort you very earnestly in the Lord and by your
reception of holy baptism, whereby you are bound to
our apostolic commands, and by the bowels of the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, enjoin strictly, that
inasmuch as with eager zeal for the true faith you
design to equip and despatch this expedition, you
purpose also, as is your duty, to lead the peoples
dwelling in those islands and countries to embrace the
Christian religion; nor at any time let dangers or
hardships deter you therefrom, with the stout hope and
trust in your hearts that Almighty God will further your
undertakings.
And, in order that you may enter upon so great an
undertaking with greater readiness and heartiness
endowed with the benefit of our apostolic favor, we, of
our own accord, not at your instance nor the request of
anyone else in your regard, but of our own sole largess
and certain knowledge and out of the fullness of our
apostolic power, by the authority of Almighty God
conferred upon us in blessed Peter and of the vicarship
of Jesus Christ, which we hold on earth, do by tenor of
these presents, should any of said islands have been
found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and
assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of
Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their
dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all
rights, jurisdictions, and appurtenances, all islands and
mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be
discovered towards the west and south, by drawing and
establishing a line from the Arctic pole, namely the
north, to the Antarctic pole, namely the south, no
matter whether the said mainlands and islands are
found and to be found in the direction of India or
towards any other quarter, the said line to be distant
one hundred leagues towards the west and south from
any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and
Cape Verde.
With this proviso however that none of the islands and
mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be
discovered, beyond that said line towards the west and
south, be in the actual possession of any Christian king
or prince up to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ just
past from which the present year one thousand four
hundred and ninety-three begins. And we make,
appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and
successors lords of them with full and free power,
authority, and jurisdiction of every kind; with this
proviso however, that by this our gift, grant, and
assignment no right acquired by any Christian prince,
who may be in actual possession of said islands and
mainlands prior to the said birthday of our Lord Jesus
Christ, is hereby to be understood to be withdrawn or
taken away.
Moreover we command you in virtue of holy
obedience that, employing all due diligence in the
premises, as you also promise—nor do we doubt your
compliance therein in accordance with your loyalty and
royal greatness of spirit—you should appoint to the
aforesaid mainlands and islands worthy, God-fearing,
learned, skilled, and experienced men, in order to
instruct the aforesaid inhabitants and residents in the
Catholic faith and train them in good morals.
Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication late
sententie to be incurred ipso facto, should anyone thus
contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever
rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate,
degree, order, or condition, to dare, without your special
permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and successors, to
go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the
islands or mainlands, found and to be found, discovered
and to be discovered, towards the west and south, by
drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole to
the Antarctic pole, no matter whether the mainlands
and islands, found and to be found, lie in the direction of
India or toward any other quarter whatsoever, the said
line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west
and south, as is aforesaid, from any of the islands
commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde;
apostolic constitutions and ordinances and other
decrees whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding.
We trust in Him from whom empires and governments
and all good things proceed, that, should you, with the
Lord’s guidance, pursue this holy and praiseworthy
undertaking, in a short while your hardships and
endeavors will attain the most felicitous result, to the
happiness and glory of all Christendom. But inasmuch
as it would be difficult to have these present letters sent
to all places where desirable, we wish, and with similar
accord and knowledge do decree, that to copies of
them, signed by the hand of a public notary
commissioned therefor, and sealed with the seal of any
ecclesiastical officer or ecclesiastical court, the same
respect is to be shown in court and outside as well as
anywhere else as would be given to these presents
should they thus be exhibited or shown. Let no one,
therefore, infringe, or with rash boldness contravene,
this our recommendation, exhortation, requisition, gift,
grant, assignment, constitution, deputation, decree,
mandate, prohibition, and will. Should anyone presume
to attempt this, be it known to him that he will incur the
wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter
and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of
the incarnation of our Lord one thousand four hundred
and ninety-three, the fourth of May, and the first year of
our pontificate.
Gratis by order of our most holy lord, the pope.
Alexander
May 4, 149315 [emphases added]
The Christian command to convert non-Christians could not
have been more explicit. Importantly, the reference to India
in the Bull was of direct consequence to the European
colonisation of Bharat as we shall see later in Chapter 8.
While the Bull was issued after Columbus’ expedition of
1492, as is evident from the Bull, Christian injunctions
undergirded both the expedition and the subsequent
voyages to the New World. According to Wynter, the
treatment of ‘pagan polytheistic peoples’ as ‘idolators’ by
Columbus was traceable to the Judeo-Christian perception of
the world’s population being divided into:
1. Christians (who had heard and accepted the new
Word of the gospel),
2. infidels like the Muslims and Jews, who, although they
were monotheists, had refused the Word, and
3. those pagan polytheistic peoples who had either
ignored or had not yet been preached the Word.
Wynter was of the view that the religious term ‘idolator’
informed the meaning of secular terms, such as ‘Indios’ or
‘Indians’, which led to the religion-induced racial othering of
non-Christian idol-worshipping communities encountered by
Columbus. The encounter of the Christian European
coloniser with non-Christian idol-worshipping societies in
turn led to the justification of ‘liberation’ and ‘civilisation’
being offered for the colonisation of a religiously and, hence,
racially inferior people. This ultimately paved the way for
institutionalised slavery and an economy based on it.16
Mignolo too echoed these thoughts in his paper titled
‘Racism as We Understand It Today’ in which he charted the
Christian OET-driven origins of the European coloniser’s
obsession with race/ethnicity.17
Building on the works of Quijano and Wynter, Nelson
Maldonado-Torres
suggested
that
religion
as
an
anthropological category and race as an organising principle
of human identification and social organisation were the
products of European colonialism, which only expanded with
the growth of Western modernity.18 According to him, both
religion and race were constituted together and became two
of the most central categories that altered global history at
every level. Therefore, the critical theory of religion was
highly relevant to understanding the critical theory of race,
and both were relevant to understanding the evolution of
ethics.
In
essence,
any
understanding
of
coloniality/modernity was incomplete without applying the
twin lenses of religion and race, and the only way to present
an alternative foundation for ethics was to adopt a
decolonial approach, given the near-complete hegemony of
coloniality and modernity on contemporary ideas of ethics.
According to Torres, the Age of Discovery necessitated the
broadening of the understanding of European conceptions of
religion when the Christian European coloniser came into
contact with non-Christian indigenous societies of the New
World. Citing the work of Guy Stroumsa, an Israeli scholar of
religious studies, Torres took the view that the Age of
Discovery prompted a new approach to religion in view of
Christianity’s encounter with Amerindians; this is what
makes the Age of Discovery relevant for understanding the
emergence of the modern categories of religion and race.
According to him, this was a major ‘epistemic revolution’ in
its own right. He also felt that the link between race and
religion was better understood by taking into account
Christianity’s theological conceptions of Judaism, given its
attempts to sever itself from its Jewish racial roots, as well
as its perceptions of Islam. For a more comprehensive
understanding of the race–religion interplay, he suggested
the inclusion of perceptions of blackness (namely the
perceived link between race, colour and the existence of a
soul) and indigeneity as well.
On the issue of broadening of conceptions of religion upon
Christianity’s encounter with indigenous societies, Torres’
interpretation of Columbus’ encounter with the native
peoples of Americas differed from Wynter’s. He was of the
view that since Christianity recognised only three categories
—Christians, infidels and idolators—Columbus initially
struggled to place the natives of the Americas in any of the
three, and, therefore, assumed that they were not people
from a ‘wrong’ or ‘false’ religion, but were simply without
religion. The absence of religion was perceived as absence
of a soul in Christian thought, with the soul being a
condition precedent for a human to establish a connection
with the divine. This divide between those with a soul and
without, according to Torres, led to race consciousness in
the European coloniser, because the coloniser saw the
coloured native people as ‘non-souls’. This converted
religion into an anthropological category because it had
become a marker of race.
That the European Christian coloniser was White and the
native peoples were ‘Black’ (or of colour) was not lost on the
former. Therefore, the White Christian became the one with
a soul, and therefore fully human, while the Black native
was without a soul, and therefore not fully human, or simply
non-human. Owing to this crucible of religion, race and
colour, the soulless non-Christian Black natives were
subjected to religion-induced dehumanisation, which
justified and facilitated their treatment as slaves, or at the
very least, as those upon whom the light of Christianity,
Europeanness and civilisation had to be shone.
Entire continents and societies were associated with
soullessness, requiring either enslavement or conversion,
since adopting Christianity was believed to infuse a soul into
the dark soulless native. In other words, in the eyes of the
Christian European coloniser, he was not merely ‘saving’ the
soul of a non-Christian infidel or idolator but was breathing
soul into a Satan-worshipping subhuman, an animal,
through his Christianising and civilising European touch. If
this healing touch was resisted, the subhuman had to be put
down ruthlessly like a beast. What is important to note is
that whether approached from the perspective of Wynter,
where natives were seen as idolators by Columbus, or from
the point of view of Torres, that Columbus considered them
soulless, both views emanated from Christian OET as it
existed then and shared a common purpose—native nonChristian communities had to convert or die.
Initially, native Americans were welcoming of Europeans,
as evidenced by the alteration of their Creation lore to
accommodate the existence of the White Man. However, as
contact and trade increased between the two groups, the
native gradually saw his land being lost to the European to
cover the debts incurred in the course of trade,19 and as the
coloniser’s greed for native land increased, conversion to
Christianity did too. At the very least, serious efforts were
invested by Christian European missionaries to map local
traditions and deities onto Christianity to reconcile the two
and gradually ease the native into the coloniser’s religion.
Conversion to Christianity was also projected to the native
as a way of gaining social respectability, acceptance into
the circles of the coloniser and access to European
education being offered by missionaries. This meant that
Christianity satisfied the practical needs of the native
peoples, needs which were created by the coloniser, instead
of fulfilling their spiritual needs.
In her paper ‘The Impact of Colonial Contact on the
Cultural Heritage of Native American Indian People’,
Nassima Dalal suggested that evangelical attempts to
convert indigenous populations had more than one
objective. The first was, of course, to spread the word of the
Gospel and the second was to acquire the land of
indigenous populations.20 Some would say it was the other
way around and that religion was used as a means to an
end,21 the end being integration of native peoples into
European culture and complete elimination of the native
culture.22 This was achieved through several means, one of
which was to massacre vast numbers of the community, and
to ensure that the rest of the community fell in line they
were forced onto reservations with minimal resources. In
some cases diseases, such as smallpox and the plague,
were introduced with the knowledge that the indigenous
community was not immune to them.
There are recorded instances of ‘voluntary conversion’ by
indigenous peoples when the threat of confrontation with
the coloniser loomed large. The hope was that such
conversions to Christianity would prevent violence and start
a dialogue between the communities. Clearly, such
conversion was seen as the only alternative to annihilation.
Notwithstanding such attempts to make peace with the
‘civilised’ Christian coloniser, literature tells us that just
about 10 per cent of the native population survived
European
diseases,
massacres,
displacement
and
23
assimilation which wiped out most of its bearers of
tradition and knowledge.24 In contemporary discourse, it is
sometimes argued that the little that survives of indigenous
tradition is proof of the coloniser’s accommodative nature,
when, on the contrary, it is proof of the determination of the
community to keep its identity alive.
The Europeanisation and Christianisation of native
populations was accelerated and cemented by the fact that
the coloniser actively wielded both the stick and the carrot.
A once thriving and vibrant society with its own centres of
production of culture and knowledge was physically and
culturally exterminated and reduced to a colonised human
mass of illiterate peasants, thereby creating the infamous
‘White Man’s Burden’. On the other hand, the yawning void
so created was filled by offering European culture as the
way to climb the social ladder. In other words, the demand
for European culture was created and met by the European
coloniser, not just for the present but for all time to come.
This the European coloniser passed off as his benevolence
for he was saving the heathen native’s soul from the latter’s
own ignorance, superstition and savagery. Had it not been
for archaeological and ethnological studies, it would have
been next to impossible to reconstruct native life as it
existed in precolonial times or the genocides perpetrated by
the coloniser. But for this evidence, European coloniality
would have successfully justified and explained the civilising
effect of colonisation and convinced us all that its culture,
religion and way of life were globalised through peaceful
means.25
This explains the present Christian character of the
Americas and large parts of Africa, which should come as no
surprise. Given the complete cultural domination colonised
societies in Latin America were subjected to by the
European coloniser, it was only human on the part of the
dominated to latch onto the closest living culture (including
religion) available to them, namely that of the coloniser,
which they wore as a badge of honour with the zeal of a new
convert. The adoption of the coloniser’s culture was clearly
not a matter of choice but a sheer human reaction and
perhaps even a necessity, thanks to the atrocious and
inhuman conditions created by the coloniser.
It was only a matter of time before the new convert to
European culture and religion not only disowned his
previous identity but also spewed venom against it because
he associated his past and heritage with weakness,
superstition and defeatism, thus completing the process of
severing ties with his roots. To use a pop culture reference,
coloniality was a form of ‘inception’ performed on the minds
of the colonised so that colonialism and colonisation were
no more external to their consciousness, but became
internal to it. Importantly, be it the Americas or Africa or
Asia, the replacement or dilution of indigenous faith systems
by the European coloniser’s religion had an adverse bearing
on the sacred relationship between indigenous societies and
their land, and consequently with nature. This, in turn,
severely affected indigenous onto-epistemology and culture,
as shall be seen in the next chapter.
3
Coloniality, Indigenous Faiths,
Nature and Knowledge
Christians destroy Irminsul, the world tree
The destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann. In
the 770s, a holy wood at Eresburg, also sacred to the Saxons, was taken in
battle by Charlemagne. The victorious Christian forces destroyed the holy
Irminsul, a tall pillar in the wood representing the world tree Yggdrasil. Surviving
Saxon boys were carried off to be indoctrinated and trained as missionaries.
Most studies on European colonialism are typically centred
around its impact on the political independence of colonised
native societies, the immense economic harm caused to
them and the consequent ‘illiteracy’ and impoverishment of
these societies. In my opinion, this in itself is proof of
coloniality since quite a few native societies are yet to
understand the true impact of colonialism, namely the loss
of an original indigenous perspective, which does not even
seem to figure in their list of things to reclaim.
To restate, if a colonised society assesses even the loss it
has suffered on account of colonialism on the anvils of
‘development’ as defined by the European coloniser, it only
proves the entrenchment of coloniality. In fact, it firmly
establishes the extent of internalisation of the colonial
worldview deep within the native society’s consciousness,
so much so that it is oblivious to the loss of its own agency
over such consciousness. After all, how can one feel the loss
of a thing whose existence one has become unconscious to?
While it is easy to dismiss this as the elitism of the well-fed,
the exhortation is not about obsessing over the loss of high
culture while the masses are left to deal with soul-crushing
poverty. Instead, it is about restoring something as
fundamental as dignity to the native perspective so that the
indigenous society can rebuild itself using its own ideals and
tools instead of those of the coloniser.
Fortunately, there exists scholarship which avoids the
predictable, superficial and mercantile lines of enquiry in
relation to the impact of European colonialism, and delves
deeper by examining the very character of economic growth
which has been universalised by the European coloniser at
the expense of nature. Scholars agree that apart from
wiping out entire civilisations, restructuring economies and
redrawing the map of the world, European colonialism’s
deadliest consequence for the entire world has been its
fundamental conceptual alteration of the relationship
between human beings and nature.1 In short, the
introduction of ‘humanism’ and its relationship with
‘materialism’ and ‘consumerism’ can be traced to European
coloniality. In stark contrast to the benevolent connotations
imputed to humanism, the literature reveals, as we shall
see, that it has the direct effect of placing humans over and
above nature, which is the product of coloniality. This
monumental shift in the approach to nature affected
indigenous societies the most, since prior to European
colonisation, the entirety of their culture was inextricably
linked to and revolved around nature, including their faith
systems, sense of community, systems of production and
dissemination of knowledge, and economy.2
For instance, the Native Americans believed that life
emerged from the interior of the earth and that the earth
resembled the womb of a mother in which she nurtured life.3
Prior to the advent of the European coloniser, this belief
formed the basis of fraternal relations between various
tribes as well as between communities and their respective
geographies. The end result or, perhaps, the objective was
to preserve respect for nature and its balance. That a
fraternal bond existed between diverse communities, which
are often lumped together as ‘indigenous peoples’, is clear
from the fact that when the European coloniser arrived in
North America, there were close to 2,000 cultural groups
that had their own lifestyles, languages, beliefs and
customs. Notwithstanding territorial conflicts, which may be
attributed to human nature, their coexistence has been
attributed to their ‘human-to-land’ ethic and their belief that
they were all citizens of nature.4 This ability to think as a
species that is not removed from nature, and to
simultaneously preserve and celebrate the cultural diversity
within, is of immense relevance to several contemporary
debates where discussions around social cohesion and
‘unity’ are loaded with an overbearing penchant for
homogenisation and standardisation.
In his book The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian,
Joseph Epes Brown,5 scholar of Native American traditions,
observed that despite their diversity, the Amerindian
peoples lived ‘a metaphysic of nature’, wherein each group
spelled out in great detail the roles and responsibilities of
the members of the community. This enumeration of roles
was based on the realisation of the ‘vast web of
humankind’s cyclical interrelationships with the elements,
the earth and all that lives upon the land’.6 Their relationship
with the earth was one of ‘reciprocal appropriation’, that is,
to give and receive, ‘in which humans participate[d] in the
landscape while at the same time they incorporate[d] the
landscape and its inhabitants into the most fundamental
human experience and understanding’.7 To them, nature was
never meant to be isolated from humans and studied in a
silo. As opposed to being an object of clinical study, it was
meant to be lived with in harmony. This ‘environmental
morality’ instilled humility and informed both intercommunity relations as well as their collective relationship
with nature.8 This ethical relationship with nature was based
on the fundamental belief that there was a spiritual
dimension to the earth, of which humans too were a part
(but only a part), and it was believed that upsetting the
balance of nature would not go unpunished by it.
The natives’ respect for nature gave rise to their faith, and
the symbols or icons used were inspired by animals and
landforms, thereby putting nature at the centre of their
lives. Connections among members of the community were
forged through specific traditions.9 Even their epistemology
revolved around nature and communal harmony. It was this
deeply spiritual relationship, embedded in traditional
practices and oral knowledge of tribe elders that constituted
their ‘religion’, thus tying together nature, faith and
knowledge.10
On a related note, perhaps followers of certain Indic
schools of philosophy can relate to the beliefs of the Siouan
culture as depicted by Brown in his book The Sacred Pipe.11
The Siouan people believed that the whole of creation was
essentially one and that all parts within the whole were
related. What was particularly interesting was the way the
Sioux referred to each other in relational terms. For
instance, an old woman would be addressed as ‘mother’ and
a much older woman as ‘grandmother’. Such an approach to
human relations is a direct corollary of the community’s
spiritual attitude to nature. All of this changed when
Columbus’ Christian expeditionary party landed on the
shores of America with an intention to colonise it.
When the European coloniser set foot on the American
soil, he was staunchly rooted in the Christian belief that
humans were above other creatures since humans (read the
White Christian) were ‘beings’ because they possessed
souls, and the rest were ‘non-beings’ because they had no
souls. Christianity placed the ‘human being’, preferably the
Christian White European, above the rest of creation,
thereby furthering the belief that nature existed solely for
the ‘pursuit of his happiness’ and his ‘manifest destiny’. The
difference in the attitudes of the Native Americans and the
coloniser towards nature could not have been starker. One
worshipped nature and saw himself as a part of it, while the
other put himself above nature and sought to enjoy its
plenty as a matter of divinely ordained right. It is no surprise
then that ‘humanism’ and ‘materialism’ are the direct
consequences of the coloniser’s OET, which, among other
things, gave birth to a Cartesian dualistic approach, whose
distinction between subject/mind and object/body placed
human beings above nature. This explains the coloniser’s
approach to ‘development’ as well. Simply put, coloniality
objectified nature apart from dehumanising vast swathes of
humanity.12
Interestingly, while the Enlightenment is celebrated for
ushering in the Age of Reason through its supposed
challenge to Christian dogma, it is the Enlightenment whose
emphasis on Christianity’s Cartesian dualistic approach to
humans and nature that advanced the idea of superiority of
the ‘rational human mind’ over ‘non-rational nature’. This
paved the way for the conquest of nature by the ‘superior’
human.13 Nature was reduced to a commodity, the
knowledge of which was necessary not to live with or in it,
but for the utilisation of ‘natural resources’.14 Richard
Drayton, in Nature’s Government, argued that the
commodification of nature was the driving force behind
imperialism and colonialism, which gave birth to capitalism
and universalist developmentalism.15 This is because, to the
Christian European coloniser, the rest of the world
represented ‘wildness’, and so he took it upon himself to
‘civilise’ populations and subdue nature by introducing them
to ‘rationality’ and ‘order’. This civilising mission took the
form of aggressive industrialisation and spawned the
development discourse which dominated the twentieth
century, and continues to have contemporary purchase in
several decolonised countries that are still trying to ‘catch
up’ with the West.16 Critically, despite the diversity of human
experiences and natural conditions encountered by the
coloniser in different parts of the world, he was convinced
beyond doubt that the same model of economic growth,
industrialisation and development could be replicated
uniformly across the world without exception. This once
again reflects the homogenising intent and effect of the
modernity/rationality complex of European coloniality.
Raymond Murphy went so far as to say that control over
nature and its utilisation as a resource may have even
shaped the European coloniser’s ideas on government,
empire and economics since the goal was to govern all of
nature. It has been posited that the very idea of rationality
and its dimensions may have been the consequence of the
intention to explore, exploit and govern nature in a
systematic fashion, so much so that colonialism has been
called the ‘outworking of bureaucratic rationalisation’.
Murphy argued that four dimensions of rationality became
the central features of colonial States, which have been
identified as follows17:
1. The development of science and technology, which
has been defined as ‘the calculated, systematic
expansion of the means to understand and manipulate
nature’, and the scientific worldview’s ‘belief in the
mastery of nature and of humans through increased
scientific and technical knowledge’;
2. The expansion of the capitalist economy with its
rationally organised and, in turn, organising market;
3. Formal hierarchical organisation, namely the creation
of executive government, translating social action into
rationally organised action; and
4. The elaboration of a formal legal system to manage
social conflict and promote the predictability and
calculability of the consequences of social action.
To these four dimensions, I would add two more: (5)
rejection of any onto-epistemological system that worships
nature instead of conquering and harnessing it which led to
either Christianity being imposed on the natives, or in some
cases, Christianising the native faith; and (6) replacement of
indigenous education systems, and systems of production of
knowledge with a Christian European model of education
which embedded the first five dimensions deep within the
native citizens of a colonialised future and shaped their
entire worldview.
Murphy laid the blame for the ‘radical uncoupling of the
cultural and the social from nature’18 at the doors of the
Enlightenment which, he believed, spurred the colonial
project of reordering nature to serve human needs. This
perhaps explains why the colonised territory was primarily
viewed as a resource for exploitation, with its inhabitants
being treated as subhuman, dark, idol-worshipping, soulless,
heathen irritants who obstructed the coloniser’s unhindered
use of nature. Naturally, such an approach wreaked havoc
on indigenous lands, so much so that even the coloniser
was alarmed and had to start thinking about ‘conservation’
of nature. However, since the coloniser’s mind was the very
fount of coloniality, his approach to conservation too was
colonial because the silo-based approach to human beings
and nature continued to plague his new mission of
conserving nature. The ‘modern’, ‘rational’, ‘scientific’,
Christian European coloniser could not get himself to
acknowledge that the lived experience and traditional
knowledge of native societies gathered over millennia could
teach him more than a thing or two about living in harmony
with nature as opposed to merely salvaging what remained
of it in the name of ‘sustainable’ development. It took him
ages to even concede that there was something seriously
amiss in his attitude to nature, by which time nature had
started reacting to the plunder and devastation it had been
subjected to.
Apart from wreaking unprecedented havoc on nature and
wiping out native faith systems, the presence of the
coloniser also had a direct bearing on native knowledge
traditions because as stated earlier, such traditions were
tied to the native faith, which was in turn rooted in nature.
Native knowledge traditions were largely passed on through
the generations orally, employing storytelling as a means of
transmitting knowledge.19 One of its objectives was to keep
the knowledge within the community, so that it was
accessible only to those who understood both its meaning
and, importantly, its sanctity. This obviated the need for
written records. However, the fundamental differences in
their ontologies, coupled with the absence of written
records, the importance given to the written word by the
Christian coloniser, and the consequent treatment of oral
traditions as apocryphal and ‘mythical’, may collectively
explain the coloniser’s attitudes to indigenous ontoepistemological systems.
For all its expression of iconoclasm towards polytheistic
and idol-worshipping indigenous communities, the religion
of the European coloniser deifies its central scripture as the
‘Word of God’ given its revelatory treatment. Therefore, only
that which was contained in their scripture or the Book was
deemed to be true, making the colonisers the People of the
Book. The expectation that every religion must have a
‘book’ as its sole authority that captured its tenets was
essentially a Christian expectation, which was imposed on
the onto-epistemological systems of native communities in
order to delegitimise or Christianise their faiths. The
absence of a ‘book’ not only rendered their faiths but also
their entire history legendary and mythical in the eyes of
the coloniser. Simply put, if the proof of the object of faith
did not exist in writing, the object did not exist. The result
was that instead of faith being treated as an experiential
path to the divine, its validity had to be established in the
eyes of a coloniser who was intent on judging indigenous
faith systems on Christian European anvils of modernity and
rationality.
The absence of written records made it more convenient
for the coloniser to erase native histories after destroying or
appropriating their sacred spaces. In an age prior to
globalisation, since the rest of the world did not know much
about native culture before the advent of the Christian
European coloniser, thenceforth their story would be the
one written by the coloniser. In any case, given that close to
90 per cent of the native population was wiped out in
several colonised societies, such as the Americas, it had a
direct impact on the continuity of their onto-epistemological
traditions and systems. This only added to the apocryphal
aura that European colonialism had enveloped native
cultures in.
Apart from the calculated use of violence, the coloniser
introduced linguistic and education policies intended to
ensure that the native population that survived genocide
was recast in the colonial mould. The Christian coloniser was
acutely alive to the fact that language captured a culture’s
journey and reflected it through its stories, idioms, proverbs
and usages, which connected the speaker with the
collective past. To remove traces of the past in the language
of the future, native children were forbidden from speaking
in their languages,20 a practice that continues in Englishmedium schools to this day. Children were separated from
their families and placed in boarding schools to eliminate
the influence of parents and their culture. This way, a
‘modern’ Christian education created an entire generation of
colonialised Native Americans divorced from their heritage,
with no sense of belonging to their roots or even their
family. Critically, a cultural divide had been created within
members of the same family and community, and the only
culture the future of the community was exposed to was
that of the coloniser.21
The locations of these boarding schools were chosen to
further the goal of cultural distancing by situating them as
far away as possible from the cultural centres of the native
society, and the medium of instruction was the language of
the coloniser—either Portuguese, Spanish, French or English.
Unfortunately for the coloniser, traces of the native culture
survived, albeit in the coloniser’s language, but with that
the essence and the lived experience of the culture was
altered forever.22 While some scholars have interpreted the
use of the coloniser’s language to keep the native culture
alive as a form of ‘creative resistance’ on the part of
indigenous colonised communities,23 in my view, such an
interpretation is, at best, human optimism at work. Until
natives fully reclaim their agency, which includes linguistic
agency, there is no escaping the fact that they lead
incomplete, inchoate and incoherent lives, individually and
collectively.
The colonial intent behind linguistic policies were equally
reflective of the entire system of colonial education. Colonial
education was offered not as an alternative to pre-existing
indigenous forms of education but with the specific
objective of gradually erasing their existence. The literature
on the African experience with colonial education introduced
by the British, especially in South Africa, tells us that
colonial investment in ‘educating’ the colonised population
had several motivations, religious not excluded, wherein the
modernity/rationality complex played a significant role.24 The
coloniser’s perceived sense of religious and racial
superiority meant that he felt obligated to ‘civilise’ and
‘educate’ the indigenous population and ‘liberate’
indigenous souls from the ignorance and superstition that
possessed them. In this sense, colonial education was a
form of exorcism performed on the heathen native by the
Christian coloniser. That apart, the more mundane and
practical consideration that was couched in loftier
otherworldly objectives was the need to cultivate loyalty
towards the colonising empire in the short term and lay the
foundations for long-term co-option and assimilation of the
natives into the European way of life, albeit as second-grade
human beings. Therefore, education was perhaps one of the
most potent tools for cultural Europeanisation of indigenous
peoples.
There was no attempt on the part of the colonial
government to even hide the stated goals of colonial
education, namely social engineering. Education was
expressly employed to ‘shape the political, social, cultural,
and economic direction of the colonies’25 and was designed
to reinforce and reproduce racist structures. In short, it was
an investment in a colonial future. There even exist
recorded instances of European legislators in colonial South
Africa exhorting the South African government to ‘win the
fight against the non-White in the classroom instead of
losing it in the battlefield’.26 So much for all the vaunted
liberation and civilisation being benevolently offered by the
coloniser through his education.
In Africa, even schools were not spared racial segregation,
and it goes without saying that the schools meant for
European students were better than those for African
children. Expenditures and budgetary outlay for the
education of White students were generally ten times higher
than those for Black students.27 Importantly, the goal of
social engineering and subservience of the native society
was embedded in the curriculum since the coloniser was
aware of its power to ‘shape the economic, social and
political futures of students’.28 Clearly, any system of
colonial education was but a way of maintaining political
control over production of knowledge and social discourse.29
While colonial education was offered as a means to climb
the social ladder with acceptance by the European being its
ultimate destination, there were glass ceilings firmly in
place which ensured that native students were always kept
below the European.30
Colonial curriculum was often imported from either Britain
or North America, and was designed to produce Africans
who would always consider themselves inferior in their
interactions with Europeans, and would take pride in serving
the interests of the White man. It was formulated to prepare
native children for taking up subordinate roles and to
protect the interests of the coloniser at the expense of those
of the colonised community.31 Impressionable young Africans
were being taught that a ‘civilised’ African was one who
assimilated into European culture. Even teachers were
trained in such a manner so as to ensure that African and
European children in British colonies did not receive the
same education.32 The entire stated goal of colonial
education was to preserve and maintain the ‘unquestioned
superiority and supremacy’ of the Whites, which has been
summarised by scholars as follows:
The brown workman would always have to work under a
European and therefore there would be no conflict. The
cast of mind of the Native is such that he could rarely
take charge. His lack of inventiveness and of ingenuity
in mechanical work would make him inferior to the
European as a trained workman, and at no time would
he compete with the European.33
One ‘scientific’ reason that was offered to explain the
disparity in curricula was the coloniser’s perception of a
given colonised community’s aptitude for knowledge based
on race, the pecking order being Whites, Indians, Coloureds
and Black Africans.34 The premise of this racial stratification
was that Africans could not master ‘bookish subjects’ and
therefore, even if given an opportunity, were incapable of
competing with Europeans. Accordingly, they were offered
only vocational or industrial training. On the rare occasion
that ‘exceptional’ African students were offered access to an
‘academic curriculum’, the medium of instruction was
English, proficiency in which was integral to academic
success.35 That said, even the academic curriculum would be
centred on Europe and North America, which were portrayed
as ‘modern’ and ‘developed’, while African countries were
shown as being ‘traditional’ and ‘backward’. The policy of
racial segregation was not limited to academics but
extended to extracurricular activities as well. Those sports
with higher earning potential, such as cricket, rugby, tennis,
hockey and polo, were reserved for White students, whereas
soccer, netball, volleyball, track and field events were open
to all, including the ‘others’.
Commenting on the objective of colonial education in
Africa, Nelson Mandela remarked thus36:
The educated Englishman was our model; what we
aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen’. We were taught
—and believed—that the best ideas were English ideas,
the best government was English government, and the
best men were Englishmen.
Mandela was acutely aware of the fact that the purpose of
colonial education in educating people like him was to
create a new ‘Black elite’ in Africa that looked up to the
coloniser and his way of life. Clearly, as some scholars on
colonial education in Africa have pointed out, non-European
and European children in British colonies did not receive the
same education: while one was taught to serve, the other to
rule, which was the vision of the coloniser—to colonialise
the colonised society.37
To assume that this goal was limited to the education
introduced by colonial governments would be factually
incorrect. In Africa—which was divided up between the
European colonisers, such as Britain, France, Germany and
Belgium, through the 1884 Belgium Conference—education
was taken up by missionaries, merchants and colonial
governments. Missionaries were much more candid than
colonial governments about their objective of educating
Africans—evangelisation.38 Literature reveals that the intent
behind sending Christian missionaries to Native American
societies too was the same.39 The transgenerational trauma
inflicted by Christian missionaries who accompanied the
coloniser and who were responsible for running colonial
schools was immeasurable.
While some societies in Africa completely succumbed to
European education, others resisted and turned schools into
centres of revolutionary protest, thereby birthing liberation
movements.40 However, by and large, the overall impact of
colonial education was that the colonised were left with a
limited sense of their past, and their indigenous traditions
were gradually pushed towards extinction. To cut a long
story short, colonial education annihilated a society’s belief
in itself. It made the colonised people see their past as one
vast wasteland of non-achievement and it made them
desirous of distancing themselves from that wasteland, and
instead identify with an entity that was furthest removed
from them—European culture. Not only did it push the
colonialised natives further away from their heritage but it
also undermined their self-confidence at an individual level.
All in all, this much is clear: European coloniality was
directly responsible for disrupting the sacred relationship
between indigenous peoples and nature, the destruction of
their faith, language, political and societal structures and
knowledge—in short, their entire culture. This led to what
the scholars have termed ‘psychocultural marginality’,41
wherein loss of cultural identity results in social and
individual disorganisation which manifests as ‘low selfesteem, extreme poverty, oppression, depression, loss of
identity, substance abuse, violence, lower life expectancy,
low educational attainment, limited employment, poor
housing and ill health’.42 It is a continuing state of limbo
wherein the natives are neither capable of subscribing to
the culture of the coloniser nor going back to their own
roots, since they do not exist as a whole any longer. This
transgenerational trauma is ‘cumulative, unresolved,
historic, and ongoing’43 as long as coloniality is alive and
kicking. It was to the credit of the determination of native
peoples which kept alive whatever remained of their culture.
It was this determination that gave colonised societies the
strength and confidence needed to aspire for political
independence, which was also partly a consequence of
colonial education backfiring on the coloniser.
However, as we shall see in the next chapter, the deep
entrenchment of the coloniality of the Christian European
coloniser through the establishment of his political, legal
and educational infrastructure impacted even the freedom
struggles of colonised societies. So much so that their
political aspirations—starting from the manner in which they
defined freedom, to the political institutions they hoped to
set up after independence, including their vision for the
decolonised society—were all influenced by coloniality.
While the impact of coloniality on freedom movements
could not have been and was not uniform, there is no
denying the fact that coloniality influenced them to varying
degrees. As we shall see, the manifestation of ‘secularised’
coloniality remains most rampant in the political, legal and
religious spheres, which reflects in the misplaced sense of
pride that several decolonised nations draw as inheritors of
a ‘common law tradition’, or being part of the
‘commonwealth of civilised nations’ or as the ‘beneficiaries
of the Magna Carta’. This includes internalisation of that
most fundamental of European political conceptions,
‘nation-statehood’, and its attendant trappings.
4
Entrenchment of Coloniality
through European Political
Structures
Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther
Martin Luther burning the papal bull of excommunication, with vignettes from
Lut her’s life and portraits of Hus, Savonarola, Wycliffe, Cruciger, Melanchton,
Bugenhagen, Gustav Adolf & Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
Based on the discussion undertaken thus far on the nature
and origins of European coloniality, it is possible to
reasonably posit the following:
1. The European colonial project, which started with
Columbus’ expedition in 1492, did indeed have a clear
Christian inspiration that viewed nature as well as the
non-Christian New World through its Cartesian
dualist/humanist prism; and
2. This dualist approach gave birth to the European
coloniser’s sense of superiority over the rest of nature,
including
non-Christian
idolatrous
and
natureworshipping indigenous peoples. It led to the reshaping
of nature to suit the material goals of the European
coloniser, thereby giving rise to modern notions of
development, and his sense of anthropological
superiority created a race consciousness that spawned
the global imperial exercise to civilise the soulless
heathen natives by replacing the entirety of their
cultures with the European’s. The cumulative effect was
a colonial remapping of geographies/boundaries and a
distinctly religion-inspired, race-driven reallocation of
labour and resources, culminating in the creation of the
modern economy as well as its political institutions.
Naturally, the political, religious, legal and educational
infrastructure set up by the coloniser was geared towards
meeting the end goals of the said global project. However,
the extent of investment and settlement in indigenous lands
by the European coloniser depended on the opportunity
they represented and their hospitability, both physical and
social. According to Patrick Ziltener, where conditions were
conducive
for
settlement,
including
for
political
consolidation, it led to settler colonialism, and therefore
greater institutional investment in the colonised society.1 For
instance, after setting up the administrative and legal
apparatus which ensured that the reins of the colonised
society were firmly in the hands of the coloniser,
educational institutions were established primarily in those
colonies where the coloniser settled.2 In contrast, in those
lands which were not conducive for settlement but were rich
in resources, institutions that facilitated the process of rentseeking and expropriation of resources through the
purchased or coerced aid of local rulers were set up.
Importantly, the manner in which natives were recruited
into the colonial power structure was yet another proof of
the European coloniser’s deeply ingrained ethno-religious
consciousness. Soldiers and mercenaries were recruited
from those sections of the native society that were
identified as ‘martial races’, which was developed into a fullfledged doctrine and also applied in India.3 The British Indian
army was organised on religious and caste lines, again
pointing to the coloniser’s racial approach not just to
religion but also to caste. The after-effects of such an
approach to indigenous social structures are being felt even
today in our understanding of the idea of caste and the way
it has been portrayed in India studies within Bharat and the
rest of the world. A similar approach to army recruitment
based on ethnicity was employed in British Borneo, Burma
and the British areas of Africa. The Dutch were no different
in their recruitment strategies in the Dutch East Indies.
Apart from the army, this policy of recruitment was
extended to civil services as well wherein native elites, who
had bought into the idea of the European Way being the
pinnacle of civilisation, were given preferential access to
European education so that they could occupy posts of
‘prestige’ in the colonial administrative structure. Those that
converted
to
Christianity
clearly
enjoyed
greater
representation in the colonial administration, such as in the
case of the Christian Sinhalese in British Ceylon. Further,
communities and groups were pitted against one another
through preferential treatment which created animosities.
Similarly, on the economic front, stereotypes relating to
occupational specialisations were reinforced and made
further rigid through colonial policies, thereby interfering
with the organic flow of the native society’s sociocultural
dynamics.
The political structure established by the Christian
European coloniser in the colonies not only furthered the
goal of economic exploitation but also served to consciously
keep the native society in a constantly fragmented state
while consolidating the European’s political and territorial
hold over it. This strategy ensured that for a long time
native voices would not unite to oppose the coloniser’s
presence; instead they would entirely depend on the
coloniser, his ideas and his institutions for continuity of life.
The extent of dependence was evidenced by the fact that
even the native elites, or perhaps especially the elites,
began to subscribe to the coloniser’s view that the native
society would fall into disarray and utter confusion if the
coloniser were to pack his bags and leave. In the mind of
the native, the success of the coloniser in keeping the
native society under his thumb was attributed to his overall
cultural superiority (race included) and specifically, to the
most visible aspect of the colonial apparatus, namely the
administrative and legal systems imposed on the colonised
societies. Naturally, the political and legal theories
underlying the edifice found significant purchase among
native elites, thanks to their participation in the colonial
administration as well as through colonial education, both of
which covered the praxis and theory of colonial political
thought.
It needs to be appreciated that by the mid-nineteenth
century, thanks to the continued global presence of the
coloniser for over a century, the Christian European vision
for civilising the rest of the world had been significantly
secularised and universalised, consciously and otherwise.
This meant that colonised societies that looked up to the
edifice of the coloniser were no more alive, if they ever
were, to the Christian onto-episteme that informed the
colonial worldview. Consequently, the premises and pillars
of the colonial political, administrative and legal ecosystems
were accepted as the universal norm by the native elites.
Critically, European ideas and institutions were deemed to
be equally valid for a decolonised future that was
‘independent’ of the coloniser, and this independence too
was defined in European terms. An independent ‘nationstate’ modelled on European lines was the decolonised
future towards which native aspirations were generally
oriented.4 It is in this context that it becomes imperative to
understand some of the key ideas and their entirely
unsecular origins that informed the colonial political
structure. The objective of this decolonial exercise is to be
able to understand the impact that these ideas, including
secularism and constitutionalism, had on freedom
movements in colonised societies and their culmination in
the creation of nation-states built on the colonial legacy.
One might ask, so what if the political edifice of the
European coloniser was informed by a non-secular and
patently religious framework if ultimately it has been
secularised? Why obsess over the coloniser’s religion? Such
a question misses the entire point of the analysis, namely to
identify the theological foundations of the colonial
infrastructure since it has no legs to stand on independent
of them, and therefore, their identification is necessary to
outline and define a decolonial approach. In this regard,
based on my reading of Dr. Jakob De Roover’s work on the
history of secularism, it needs to be underscored that the
secularisation of the Christian onto-episteme is the
consequence of obscuring the source of a certain thought
and focusing exclusively on its outward expression.5 This
outward expression must be examined for its undergirding
because those who do not subscribe to that OET which is
the fount of that particular thought, have the right to know
of its origins and reject its imposition. This would be
consistent with the right of every society to wish to be
governed by its own values which are derived from its own
culture. Only after being apprised of its source, it is for the
society to decide whether to embrace a thought,
notwithstanding its foreign theological inspiration.
In other words, the society has the right to prior informed
consent before the imposition of an alien principle. To
pixelate and deny the origins of a thought, in my view, is
plain deception. This argument acquires greater validity and
legitimacy in the context of imposition of the coloniser’s
politico-economic worldview on dominated societies, where
the power balance was obviously skewed in favour of the
coloniser and remained so for centuries. Therefore, an
examination of such worldview through the prism of
coloniality necessarily requires us to question whether a
specific foreign theological framework was at play,
notwithstanding all the attempts at secularising and
universalising it because universalisation of a particular way
of life was the very object of coloniality. Simply put, despite
the discomfort such examination is bound to cause, which
too is attributable to ingrained coloniality, it is indispensable
and inevitable if indigenous societies are to reclaim their
right to agency at the most fundamental level.
The Protestant Reformation, the Doctrine of Two
Kingdoms, Secularism and the Nation-State
There is a general consensus among most scholars that the
concept of a nation-state, as has been understood since the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, may be
traced to the Peace of Westphalia entered into on 24
October 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe
after five years of negotiations.6 But what was the Thirty
Years’ War all about? What led to it? Was it a secular war or
did it have a distinctly and predominantly religious hue? If
yes, which religion? How did the Peace of Westphalia lead or
contribute to colonialism and coloniality?
Prior to the advent of the Westphalian State, the Christian
Commonwealth or the Christian Republic (Respublica
Christiana) or simply ‘Christendom’ existed in Europe
wherein power was distributed between the pope, the
bishops, the Holy Roman Emperor, princes of States and
nobles who thought of themselves as being part of the
Christian civilisation. Pertinently, while there were States
and rulers, they operated under the umbrella of the pope
and the emperor, which for all practical purposes, made
them feudal principalities. Starting from at least 1517 ce,
that is, over 100 years before the Peace of Westphalia,
resistance to the Catholic Church led by pastor-theologians
Martin Luther (German) and John Calvin (French)—known as
the Protestant Reformation—had begun, owing to the abuse
of papal authority and the absolute control of the Catholic
priesthood over Christianity. The nature of the challenge
posed to papal authority needs to be understood at a
deeper level in order to appreciate the true impact of
Protestant OET on the Peace of Westphalia and the
Westphalian nation-state system with its attendant
trappings that were later imposed upon colonised societies.
The nature of the Protestant Reformation warrants
understanding, especially from the perspective of Bharat,
for yet another critical reason—its anti-clericalism was
exported by the coloniser to the colonised indigenous
societies as well. In other words, all the ills, real and
perceived, associated by the Protestant Reformation with
the Roman Catholic Church were subsequently projected
onto those classes of people in the colonised societies who,
according to the Reformed coloniser, occupied the same
position as the Catholic Church. In the case of Bharat (as we
shall see in the second section of the book), Brahmins and
‘Brahminism’ were the subject of this Reformative approach.
Therefore, the ensuing portion, which deals with the thought
behind the Protestant Reformation, must be paid attention
to for more reasons than one.
On this subject, Dr. Jakob De Roover’s book Europe, India,
and the Limits of Secularism is deeply educative. But before
I go into the details of his work, I will digress a little to
address something that affects the larger issue of openness
to scholarship that questions the so-called secular and
neutral premise of contemporary institutions. De Roover’s
work is piercing and rigorous in this regard, and yet has
unfortunately not received the kind of attention in Bharat
that it ought to have, given that the subject of his
scholarship is the specific impact of European ‘secularism’
on Bharat. What makes his work a must-read is his
examination of the theological underpinnings of both the
Reformation and the Enlightenment. The tendency to ignore
his work and that of other scholars who share his position, in
my opinion, is indicative of the larger unspoken stifling of
decolonial thought and scholarship in Bharat because it has
the potential to upset the status quo on several fronts in
favour of the Indic civilisational perspective (an issue I
address in greater detail in the second section). Therefore,
wherever I believe a certain work has not received its due in
Bharat despite its manifest relevance, I have consciously
chosen to discuss it at length, as opposed to merely
referencing it, in the hope of greater dissemination of
important decolonial scholarship, such as that of De Roover.
Coming to his book, De Roover sheds light on the
Protestant politico-theological framework behind the
distinction that the ‘modern’ nation-states (including those
formerly colonised) make between the spiritual and the
temporal or secular. According to him, this distinction
significantly informed the Protestant Reformation which
started in the sixteenth century. His view is that the liberal
model of religious toleration and secularism, which
continues to have purchase in the West and in decolonised
States, is based on the specific theological framework that
was conceptually conceived of during the Protestant
Reformation. He calls it the ‘crystallization of the political
theology of Christian freedom and the two Kingdoms’. His
insights on this subject and the nexus that he unearths
between the political theology arising from the Protestant
Reformation and the very definition of what it means to be a
Christian are profound and extremely relevant for
decolonised societies that have inherited the European
political structure. His work is an essential reading in my
opinion, especially for indigenous societies, for them to
become aware of the patently non-secular context of the
modern distinction between the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘secular’
because it calls out the claim of neutral application of
values, such as secularism, which have been inherited from
the coloniser.
According to De Roover, to appreciate the true nature of
‘secularisation’ of Christianity achieved by and through the
Protestant Reformation, one must understand what the
specific object of ‘reformation’ was. This requires us to delve
briefly into Roman Catholic OET prior to the Protestant
Reformation, and more specifically into the process of
‘Conversion’. Today, while conversion in the context of
Christianity is synonymous with proselytisation of nonChristians in order to bring them into the Christian fold, the
very first people who underwent ‘conversion’ were the
Christians themselves. The process of Conversion, however,
refers to a structured spiritual regimen that was evolved in
the medieval age by Christian monks in monasteries (who
were distinct from the clergy) to achieve a true Christian life
of absolute submission to God. Submission to the Creator
meant obedience and sacrificing individual purpose at the
altar of the divine purpose. The specific goal of the process
was to ‘re-form’ man in the image of God, for which he must
overcome the original sin that stood in the way of such
‘reformation’.7
In practice, the process of conversion divided both human
beings and the world into two realms, namely the spiritual
and the temporal. The temporal world was given a shelf life
until the second coming of Christ, whereas the spiritual was
eternal. Until the second coming, the obligation of a true
Christian was to constantly work towards overcoming the
desires of the flesh so as to make the spirit and body more
spiritual.8 This meant that the process of conversion towards
the object of reformation was a never-ending one for two
reasons: first, the ‘original sin’ was too seductive to
overcome and therefore, human beings would assuredly fail,
thereby reinforcing their status as wretched sinners; and
second, this process had to continue until the second
coming.
The silver lining, if any, of this never-ending process of
conversion was that the degree of conversion achieved in
this world would determine the extent of freedom conferred
in the next world. Importantly, those who had submitted
themselves fully to God were beyond the reach of human
authorities and hence, free from their control. Not only were
they free from the restrictions imposed by any earthly
authority, their submission to God gave them the ability to
resist the desires of the flesh. However, in order to achieve
complete submission to God and total freedom from secular
authorities, faith in Christ was the only way since Christ had
received divine grace. Without such grace, humans were
themselves incapable of resisting the seductive lure of sin.
Simply put, according to Catholic belief, for all humans,
Christ was the only way to reach God.
In the medieval age, various Christian monastic orders
that revolved around the institutionalisation of this process
of conversion influenced the Church significantly. Since
these Christian monastic orders had dedicated their entire
lives to the achievement of this divine purpose through
rigorous practice, their supposedly exalted spiritual position,
according to them, also gave them power over the earthly
society and secular authority in order to convert them. The
Church, being alive to the austerities of monks, absorbed
them as bishops or elevated them to positions of leadership
within the Church. The consequence of this nexus between
monastic orders and the Church was the pursuit of
reformation of the society in the image of the monastic
community. De Roover has referred to this milestone as ‘the
monasticization of the Church’ and, therefore, Christendom
itself. Given the proliferation of monastic orders, their rules
and practices, and their manifest impact on the reform of
the Church between the tenth and twelfth centuries, the
rules followed within various monasteries were rationalised
in the interest of uniformity and preserving the rigour of the
process of conversion for reformation.
The next phase was the division of the spiritual realm
between the monks and the priests of the Church since
monastic orders had not fully merged with the Church.
However, the influence of the monastic orders on the
Church led to the morphing of priesthood to mirror the
rigours of a monastic life, which involved the four-stage
process of vocation, reform, conversion and purification.
Since monks and their way of life were exemplified as truly
Christian by the Church, a hierarchy of sorts was created
among the subjects of God, with monks occupying the top
position followed by the clergy, the ‘earthly secular’ rulers
and finally, the laity (lay believers). The order was a function
of submission to God—the greater and more complete the
submission, the greater the freedom from earthly authority
and the higher the station occupied on earth as well as in
the next world. Critically, there was an allocation of worlds
between the monks and the clergy; the monks would lead
the rest of the ‘flock’ in the other world, the Church and its
clergy would lead the flock, including the rulers, in the
earthly world akin to shepherds.9 In effect, the priests
became conduits to salvation and God since they were the
true servants of God. This is the essence of the Christian
doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus—all salvation is through
Christ and Christ can be reached only through the Church,
and therefore there is no salvation outside the Church.
Given its penultimate station in the spiritual hierarchy in
the earthly world, the Church was regarded as the ‘soul’,
while kings were the ‘body’. Naturally, the Church, the soul
which was deemed superior to the body, took it upon itself
to preserve order in the earthly world and assumed an
advisory role to the body, that is, the earthly rulers, on all
matters both religious and secular. This effectively turned
Christianity into a religion of the priests and the entirety of
Christendom into the fiefdom of the Church, which freed the
Church from the scrutiny of any form of earthly authority,
and secured for it overlordship over earthly authority. The
other less lofty objective was to secure complete
proprietorial ownership of the Church, which was the
property of the temporal rulers/kings until the eleventh
century.
According to De Roover, what helped the Church in
making a case for its freedom from all forms of secular
dominion was the fact that the separation of the spiritual
and the secular ‘was essential to Christianity itself and its
understanding of human existence from the very beginning’.
In fact, the distinction was traceable to a combined reading
of specific chapters and verses of the King James Bible,
namely John 18:36 (‘My kingdom is not of this world’), Luke
20:20 and Mark 12:17 (‘Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’). What is to
be discerned from this history is that the distinction
between the secular and the spiritual was drawn from within
the Christian framework and not outside of it. The sum and
substance of the distinction was elaborated as follows by
Hugh of Saint Victor in De Sacramentis Christinae Fidei:
There are two lives, one earthly, the other heavenly, one
corporeal, the other spiritual. By one the body lives from
the soul, by the other the soul lives from God. Each has
its own good by which it is invigorated and nourished so
that it can subsist. The earthly life is nourished with
earthly goods, the spiritual life with spiritual goods. To
the earthly life belong all things that are earthly, to the
spiritual life all goods that are spiritual . … Among
laymen, to whose zeal and forethought the things that
are necessary for earthly life pertain, the power is
earthly. Among the clergy, to whose office the goods of
the spiritual life belong, the power is divine. The one
power is therefore called secular, the other spiritual.10
Clearly, the divide between the spiritual and the secular was
not outside the scope of Christian OET.11 In fact, De Roover
categorically states that ‘without the support of a cluster of
Christian-theological notions—soul and body, the earthly
and spiritual life, divine power and the kingdom of Christ,
and so on—this distinction would dissolve into thin air’.12
Consequently, neither term, spiritual nor secular, when used
in the context of contemporary nation-states must be
divorced from the Christian origins in which they are
embedded.13 De Roover goes as far as to say that the metes
and bounds of the spiritual and secular realms were
determined on the basis of Christian OET over which the
Roman Catholic Church had the final word.
Given that the freedom enjoyed by the Church translated
to freedom to prevail over earthly rulers as well, it
expectedly led to strained relations between the Roman
Catholic Church headed by the pope and earthly authorities.
Even the common people, the lowest in the spiritual
hierarchy of Christianity, resented the sanctimonious
intervention of a hierarchically organised Catholic Church in
all facets of life. The constant sermons to overcome sin and
to repent for it contributed to a general distrust of the
Christian clergy, while their own ability to rise above the
very sin they preached against was called into question.
Ironically, this did not translate to loss of faith in
Christianity; instead, the lay believers organised themselves
in private groups to circumvent the overarching influence of
the Church and drew inspiration instead from the monastic
orders that had influenced the Church itself. However, since
it was impossible for the lay believer to observe all the
rigours of a monastic life, the process of conversion for
which monastic orders had been created spilled over into
the society and acquired a life of its own, thereby inching
towards the Protestant Reformation. De Roover calls it the
‘monasticisation of daily life’, which prepared the ground for
a confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church. After all,
the Church’s monopoly over sin and penitence was being
seriously undermined owing to the secularisation, rather deChurchification, of conversion and reform, the very pillars of
Christian belief—the raison d’être of the Church.
What made matters worse for the Church was the fact
that people were willing to believe the accounts and stories
of lecherous priests, and the Church itself began to be seen
as the biggest obstacle to the practise of true Christian
faith. No longer were the Church and its clergy seen as the
sole conduits to God, nor were they treated as exclusive or
special beneficiaries of divine grace. This empowered the
lay believer’s ability to pursue his or her own faith through
individual and direct submission to God without any form of
ecclesiastical intercession. This was the bedrock of the
approach of the Protestant Reformation to Christianity. To
digress on a related note, those who are familiar with the
origins of anti-Brahmin attitudes in Bharat after the arrival
of the European coloniser, would be able to draw parallels
between the Protestant Reformation’s grievances with the
Roman Catholic Church and the projection of similar
grievances onto institutions, practices and groups in Bharat
that were seen as ‘Brahminical’. As we shall see in the next
section, the Protestant lens led the Christian European
coloniser to treat ‘Buddhism’, ‘Jainism’ and ‘Sikhism’ as
Reformative movements that challenged ‘Brahminism’. In
other words, even the history of indigenous religious
developments within the Dharmic fold were reimagined on
Protestant lines and presented as historical facts.
Contributing to the Protestant Reformation through their
writings, Martin Luther and John Calvin democratised the
spiritual process of conversion beyond the monastic and
papal echelons. In 1520, Luther wrote in Freedom of a
Christian that faith alone was sufficient for salvation and
faith made the believer free from human laws and
obligations. Luther and other Reformers argued that faith in
the divine itself was the result of the will of God acting
through the Holy Spirit without the need for channels like
the Church, its clergy or the monks. The Reformers opposed
‘the tyranny of papacy’ and its monopoly over conversion
and freedom from laws. Consequently, according to the
Reformers, no one was a priest and everyone was a priest,
which led to deeper percolation of Christianity in society.
The Reformers went a step further and argued that if
submission to God made monks and priests free from
earthly rulers and laws, the same principle would apply to
lay believers as well if they too could achieve spiritual
conversion to the same degree as monks and priests.
However, perhaps they realised that this could put them in
direct confrontation with the authority of secular rulers,
apart from plunging the society into anarchy and chaos.
Therefore, the theory of two kingdoms was formulated, with
Biblical support of course, by both Luther and Calvin, who
struck a distinction between Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and
the temporal Kingdom of Earth where secular authorities
held sway. It was postulated that Christians enjoyed
freedom in the spiritual sphere while being required to obey
the secular laws of temporal rulers to the extent that the
latter did not encroach upon their faith. The caveat to this
position was that true Christians were free from all human
laws, similar to the view held by monks and priests, except
that this freedom was previously limited under the Catholic
position to those belonging to the spiritual estate, namely
the monks and the priests themselves. In contrast, since the
Reformers rejected the authority of the Catholic Church, its
clergy and the monks, all true Christians were entitled to
freedom from human laws if the process of conversion was
complete and submission to God was undiluted.
Further, the Reformers rejected all the spiritual laws laid
down by the Roman Catholic Church as ‘false religion’,
designed to oppress the lay believers. The bottom line was
that, according to the Reformers, no human had the power
to lay down spiritual laws since even they were ultimately
human laws with nothing ‘spiritual’ about them. Specifically,
Calvin claimed that the Kingdom of Christ was invaded by
the so-called spiritual laws created by the Roman Catholic
Church which oppressed the freedom given by Christ to the
conscience of the believers. Here, it is hard to miss the
reference to the ‘freedom of conscience’, which has become
part of the discourse on religious freedom in ‘civilised
nations’, namely the colonising as well as the colonialised
nations.
The theory of two kingdoms was, in several ways, the
precursor to the present-day doctrine of separation of the
Church and the State since both Luther and Calvin put forth
the view that temporal authority could extend only to the
affairs of the earth and never enter the spiritual sphere,
which was the exclusive preserve of God, the fount of all
things spiritual. However, contrary to the contemporary
assumptions of the ‘modern’ State being a ‘secular’ entity,
Protestant Reformers were of the clear view that the State
too was a divine order whose existence was necessary to
prevent people from following an immoral path, since as
sinners they were fundamentally prone to depravity without
an external check. In other words, the apparatus of the
State was a Christian necessity to enforce Christian morality
through the instrumentality of the law, with the Church and
the State working together to fulfill their respective
Biblically ordained Christian obligations.
What this proves is that the irreligious or ‘secular’ nature
that is imputed to a ‘modern’ nation-state owing to its
observance of the policy of separation of the Church and
State is completely ahistorical and baseless. This is because
the history of the Protestant Reformation is clear in that the
political theology of the two kingdoms upon which the policy
is based was strongly rooted in Christian beliefs and
functioned entirely within the Christian framework. It was a
conversation happening within the Christian society, and
therefore any present-day discussion on separation of the
Church and the State is incapable of being supported by
assumptions outside the fold of Christianity. De Roover
makes it abundantly clear that a secular government in
terms of the Protestant Reformation is nothing but a
Christian secular government without any conflict or logical
inconsistency, given its clear Christian origins.14 Former
colonies, the current-day decolonised nations, must bear
this in mind before parroting the secularised received
Christian wisdom behind secularism.
Coming back to the Protestant Reformation, thanks to
direct attacks by the Reformers on the Roman Catholic
Church, its legal idolatry, corruption and the abuse of power,
the Edict of Worms was issued in 1521 by the Holy Roman
Emperor, Charles V, at the behest of Pope Leo X. The edict
banned the propagation of Lutheran ideas, condemned its
followers and excommunicated Luther himself as a
notorious heretic. Naturally, this disturbed the uneasy peace
of the previous years and the next few decades saw the
spread of the Reformation, particularly Radical Reformation,
across Europe with increasingly armed reactions from the
Catholic Church. However, apart from the antipathy
between Catholicism and the Reformation movement, the
relationship between Lutherans and Calvinists too was
schismatic.
After over three decades of the edict, in 1555, when both
the Lutheran and Calvinist forms of Protestantism held sway
over vast swathes of Europe, the Peace of Augsburg or the
Augsburg Settlement was entered into between the Catholic
and Lutheran sides, which resulted in the permanent
recognition
of
Lutheranism
as
a
valid
Christian
15
denomination alongside Roman Catholicism. This gave the
rulers/princes of States within the Holy Roman Empire the
freedom to choose one of the two denominations under the
principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, which translated to
‘whose realm, his religion’. Effectively, the Augsburg
Settlement had the historic consequence of allowing each
State within the empire to determine its Christian
denominational identity, which laid the foundation for
sovereign States in Europe, and marked the beginning of
the decline of the Holy Roman Empire. However, Calvinism
was still not recognised by the Augsburg Settlement, which
made the Peace of Augsburg a shaky one and sowed the
seeds for the coming strife, namely the Thirty Years’ War.
It must be appreciated that prior to the advent of the
Protestant Reformation, religion—specifically that of the
Catholic Church, the Papal authority and the Holy Status of
the Roman Emperor—bound the Christian empire together
despite differences in political and economic goals of the
principalities within the empire. While the Reformation may
have loosened their bonds to the Catholic Church and the
Holy Roman Empire, contrary to popular perception, their
bonds to Christianity were not broken. In fact, the Peace of
Augsburg is proof of freedom of religion within the Christian
fold with each State/principality within the empire claiming
for itself a State denomination of Christianity, namely either
Roman Catholicism or Lutheranism.
However, matters precipitated when in 1608, the
Protestant Union was set up after the Imperial Diet, the
deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire, failed to
formally confirm the Peace of Augsburg. In response to the
Protestant Union, the Catholic League was formed in 1609,
gradually moving towards a large-scale European
conflagration, namely the Thirty Years’ War, with Christian
denominational freedom at the heart of the conflict, among
other things. The commencement of the war is traced to
1618, which ended in 1648 with the signing of the Peace of
Westphalia.16 The salient terms of the Peace of Westphalia,
which are relevant for our discussion, are as follows:
1. The Peace of Augsburg of 1555 along with the
principle of Cuius regio, eius religio was recognised,
strengthening the concept of religion-defined State
sovereignty, with a defined territory having an official
Christian denomination being identified as the realm of
a particular State over which princes/rulers held
dominion. Thenceforth, princes would have the right to
determine the official Christian denomination of their
States without interference from the Roman Catholic
Church or what remained of the Holy Roman Empire
after the war. What needs to be appreciated is that the
Peace of Westphalia did not result in the creation of
‘secular’ sovereign States as we understand them
today, that is, States without an official religion. On the
contrary, the war itself was fought for the right to have
an official State religion, more specifically, to choose a
State denomination within the Christian religion without
having to dance to the writ of the Roman Catholic
Church;
2. These sovereign States had exclusive rights over their
subjects on both secular and religious matters without
having to suffer the interference of the empire or other
sovereign States. This allowed them to levy taxes and
raise armies of their own, which became a priority,
especially after the experience of the Thirty Years’ War,
notwithstanding
the
precedent
of
diplomatic
negotiations to resolve disputes and conflicts set by the
Peace of Westphalia. In short, the importance of
preservation of the balance of power was understood.
Also, these States could enter into alliances with each
other with the exception of alliances against the Empire;
3. Those Christian citizens whose denominational
affiliation was different from that of the State were
guaranteed the freedom of conscience to practise in
private and limited rights to practise in public. In other
words, religious ‘minorities’ in this context were
denominational minorities from within the same religion,
namely Christianity, and their ability to practise their
denominational faith in public was contingent upon the
goodwill of the State and therefore, the majority
denomination; and
4. Calvinism, which was previously not recognised as
one of the permanent denominations of Christianity
under the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, was included as
the third official permanent denomination.
Given the drastic truncation, if not complete elimination, of
both the papacy and the overlordship of the Holy Roman
Empire, Pope Innocent X issued a papal bull, Zel Domus,
which declared the Westphalian Peace treaties ‘null, void,
invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane,
empty of meaning and effect for all time’.17 Anticipating this
papal tantrum, the Peace of Westphalia contained a clause
that pre-emptively stated that the pope’s protests would not
render the treaties void.
That the Christian Peace of Westphalia laid the foundation
for sovereign nation-states is evident from the definition of
the State in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and
Duties of States (1933).18 Article 1 of the said convention
reads as under:
The state as a person of international law should
possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent
population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
The purpose of the preceding not-so-brief historical
discussion was to demonstrate and advance the point that
the Peace of Westphalia was distinctly Christian in nature,
which has been secularised over time.19 In fact, while it is
true that the Peace of Westphalia resulted in a transition of
hegemony from the Habsburg Empire to sovereign States,
parties to the peace saw themselves as ‘the Senate of
Christian Europe’. Thanks to their newfound status as States
with greater sovereignty, if not complete independence
from the Holy Roman Empire, European States were at
greater liberty to assert and develop their respective
‘national identities’ based on ethnicity, language and
religious denomination as well as to pursue their respective
religious, economic and political goals. The freedom from
the vice-like grip of the Roman Catholic Church allowed the
people to develop a closer connection with their States and
their national identities, paving the way for greater
crystallisation of nation-statehood and the beginnings of
European nationalism.
In addition, since these States saw themselves as
defenders of the Christian faith owing to the loss of the
Habsburg Empire’s monopoly over the faith, they developed
their own competitive ‘national systems of morality’ within
and drawing from Christian OET, and set their sights on
acquiring greater resources to further their respective
competing visions. Therefore, while Columbus’ expedition
began in 1492 and colonisation by the Spaniards and the
Portuguese had already taken root, the creation of sovereign
States by the Westphalian Peace meant that there were
more European States in the fray who now competed for the
resources of the New World. Consequently, it came as no
surprise that the new States followed the Spanish and the
Portuguese policies of establishing colonies with papal
benedictions.
This spurred on the race for competitive nationalism and
colonialism while remaining firmly within the Christian fold,
a point which needs to be emphasised given the
excruciatingly embarrassing contemporary tendency to
secularise history. There is sufficient basis to conclude that
these States were driven by inter-denominational
competitiveness, triggered by the Protestant Reformation
and the Peace of Westphalia. The New World or the nonChristian world became the battleground for this aggressive
rivalry for wealth, territory, resources and ultimately,
national cum denominational supremacy.
These zealous colonising ventures of the European States
were funded by wealthy aristocrats in alliance with the
ruling elite to preserve their positions within the States as
well as to benefit from the expansionist colonising vision of
the ‘Christian secular’ monarchs. That the alliance between
wealthy aristocrats and the governing class gave rise to
mercantilism, nationalism and, perhaps, nationalistic
mercantilism would not be an unsubstantiated statement to
make.20 Some scholars believe that these alliances
contributed to the rise of capitalism, which is still a visible
feature of the Westphalian nation-state system, where those
with capital work with those in power to preserve and
advance ‘national interest’. Critically, there is a
demonstrable nexus between the Westphalian State system
and the ‘standard of civilisation’ as set by international law,
which needs to be understood in order to appreciate its
specific local manifestations in the political thought of
former European colonies.
The Coloniality of ‘Civilised Nations’ under
International Law: A Westphalian Legacy
The legacy of the Peace of Westphalia was not limited to the
creation
of
nation-states
but
also
extended
to
universalisation of the Westphalian or European experience
through the instrumentality of ‘international law’ using the
‘standard of civilisation’ as a legal benchmark to judge
societies. This is evident from Articles 9 and 38(1) of the
Statute of the International Court of Justice which was
established in 1945, that is, almost three centuries after the
Peace of Westphalia. The said provisions read as under21:
Article 9: At every election, the electors shall bear in
mind not only that the persons to be elected should
individually possess the qualifications required, but also
that in the body as a whole the representation of the
main forms of civilization and of the principal legal
systems of the world should be assured.
Article 38: 1. The Court, whose function is to decide in
accordance with international law such disputes as are
submitted to it, shall apply:
a. international conventions, whether general or
particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by
the contesting states;
b. international custom, as evidence of a general
practice accepted as law;
c. the general principles of law recognized by civilized
nations;
d. subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial
decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified
publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for
the determination of rules of law.
2. This provision shall not prejudice the power of the
Court to decide a case ex aequo et bono, if the parties
agree thereto [emphases added].
While Article 9 uses the words ‘main forms of civilization’,
Article 38(1)(c) uses the term ‘civilized nations’. Given that
these terms have been used in the context of an
international legal instrument that applies to an
international court set up under the aegis of the United
Nations, these terms must be attributed specific meanings
and cannot be used or interpreted loosely. Article 38 has
been typically understood as enumerating the ‘sources’ of
international law. However, scholars agree that these
‘sources’ themselves are the product of the Western
civilisation. In fact, they believe that international law is ‘a
living artifact’ of the Western civilisation, or more
specifically the ‘Westphalian civilisation’, since this politicotheological framework of civilisation was universalised
through its imposition on the rest of the world by Europe
and the United States under the garb of ‘international law’.22
Therefore, it can be reasonably contended that international
law itself is a denouement as well as a tool of coloniality
since colonies were faced with no other option but to adopt
Eurocentric/Western ideas, norms and institutions.
Scholars agree that the sources alluded to in Article 38(1)
were the result of the application of the ‘Standard of
Civilization’ (SOC) by the West to bestow upon societies the
status of ‘civilised nations’, which were expected to observe
and abide by the rules laid down as ‘international law’.23
Importantly, the more practical and less lofty reason for the
growth of international law was Europe’s need to transact
with non-European societies wherein the SOC was employed
as an organising principle. It ensured that business was
conducted within a Eurocentric framework in order to
protect the citizens of the West and Western ideas of
‘universal rights/freedoms’. Those that agreed to comply
with the framework by recognising the said rights and
freedoms were deemed worthy of being accorded the status
of ‘civilised nations’. Interestingly, the expectation was not
limited to the application of the SOC framework to
Westerners in the non-West; instead, non-Western societies
were expected to re-order themselves on the same lines as
European Westphalian States, which meant that the change
was not merely external but also deeply internal to the nonWest. The following were some of the specific changes
expected of the non-West by the West 24:
1. Those rights and freedoms that were guaranteed to
citizens of the West in their nation-states were expected
to be recognised and available to them in the non-West;
2. Non-Western societies were expected to adopt the
same forms of government as the West so as to protect
the freedoms and property of Western nationals within
their territories. This effectively meant the gradual
universalisation of the idea of a constitutional form of
government with three identified organs, namely the
legislature, the executive and the judiciary, whose
metes and bounds were determined by the doctrine of
separation of powers. The theoretical foundations of the
same were provided by Enlightenment thinkers, such as
Baron de Montesquieu and John Locke, in the eighteenth
century. As part of this expectation, codification of laws,
which could be administered by courts set up on the
same lines as courts in the West, was deemed
mandatory so as to protect the property rights of
Western nationals. This had the Lockean influence
written all over it;
3. Non-Western societies were expected to reorganise
themselves in a manner beneficial to the individual
freedoms of Western nationals, although such nationals
were immune to the application of domestic civil and
criminal laws, being answerable exclusively to the
consulates of Western governments. The basis for this
position was distinctly supremacist and racist, that is,
non-Western nations were not ‘civilised’, and therefore
Western nationals could not be subjected to the
‘uncivilised’ political and legal systems of the non-West;
4. Non-Western societies were expected to have the
capacity to defend their borders/territories against
external aggression apart from subscribing to the
Westphalian model of international diplomacy and State
sovereignty, which included non-interference in the
domestic affairs of other nation-states; and
5. Not only were non-Western societies expected to
abide by the principles of ‘international law’ and
become ‘nation-states’ that subscribed to ‘the rule of
law’ with regard to Western nationals, they were also
expected to conform domestically to the norms, mores
and customs recognised in and by Western societies.
Effectively, European imperial powers gained extraterritorial
jurisdiction over non-Western societies through application
of international law, which was nothing but the enforcement
of Protestant Reformation-inspired Westphalian principles.25
In the third section of this book, which relates to Bharat’s
constitutional journey, this subject is addressed in greater
detail to demonstrate the application of the SOC as a legal
requirement for membership to international bodies, such as
the League of Nations. The point being made is that
‘harmonisation’ of both economic and legal systems as a
consequence of the application of international law, that is,
internationalised European/Western law, was inevitable. To
anyone who follows contemporary discussions surrounding
international trade relations or human rights, it must be
fairly evident that the situation has not changed. If
anything, post decolonisation, the normalisation of
European coloniality through the use of international law
has only been further entrenched, owing to the economic
dependency of former colonies on the West.
To digress a bit, it is important to remember that in the
middle of the twentieth century, when several colonised
societies attained ‘independence’, the focus of the ‘civilised
world’ suddenly fell on the ‘poverty’ of the ‘Third World’. It
was conveniently forgotten that this impoverished situation
of the Third World was a direct consequence of centuries of
colonisation. Instead, decolonisation engendered a new
talking point, namely that the newly formed ‘nation-states’
must ‘catch up’ with the West by focusing on ‘development’
the European way.26 Viewed in this light, the impact of the
‘economic aid’ extended by the erstwhile colonisers to Third
World countries on the shaping of the discourse surrounding
‘rights’ and ‘development’ warrants deeper examination by
experts from the perspective of entrenchment of coloniality
using the economic needs of the former colonies as a
bargaining tool.
Coming back to the use of the SOC, it clearly served as a
litmus test for ‘civilisation’ and international interactions,
which led to the elimination of ‘pluriversalism’ and
civilisational diversity, only to be replaced by Westernnormative
universalism
and
a
‘liberal’
globalised
Westphalian civilisation. While on the one hand the
Westphalian system emphasised State sovereignty and noninterference in the domestic affairs of nation-states, it
hypocritically interfered with the domestic affairs and the
fundamental consciousness of non-Western societies.
Simply put, the concept of State sovereignty was selectively
applied to Christian European nation-states while the rest of
the world was fair game for undue interference. This
completely eviscerates the claim of the Peace of Westphalia
being a secular, liberal and egalitarian milestone that
ushered in an era of respect among nations as equals.
Members of the Christian civilisation that subscribed to
Westphalian principles were equals, but those outside of it,
namely the non-Christian indigenous societies of the New
World, were lesser and unevolved, who needed to be
‘civilised’ and ‘reformed’ through the instrumentality of
international law.
Scholars believe that the ‘liberal’ globalised civilisation is,
in fact, merely a secularised version of the Westphalian
civilisation whose secularisation is largely attributed to the
nature of the Enlightenment itself. Therefore, it is important
to examine the Christian secular nature of the
Enlightenment and its coloniality. On this subject, the work
of Dr. S.N. Balagangadhara and Dr. De Roover is incisive and
critical.27
Christianity, Enlightenment and Coloniality
It is often assumed that the Enlightenment represented the
predominance of reason over faith not just for Europe but
also for the rest of the world. That non-European
civilisations had their own respective journeys and
subjectivities is often lost in this simultaneously deliberate
and unconscious Europeanisation of world history. Colonised
indigenous societies have suffered the most as a
consequence of this approach since their journeys of
millennia, their lived experiences, their onto-epistemological
systems, their individual and collective identities and their
right to agency all have been casually and superciliously
dismissed as legends, myths and superstitions. That this
‘Enlightened’ attitude continues till date through the
colonialised native establishment makes it imperative for us
to understand the so-called secular character of the
Enlightenment. While it is relatively easy to discern the
direct nexus between the Protestant Reformation and the
Peace of Westphalia, which demonstrates the latter’s
Christian character, the Enlightenment could be mistaken
for a break from religion, more specifically from Christianity,
towards a more ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’ outlook owing to the
claim that it marked the beginning of ‘the Age of Reason’.
Therefore, this claim needs to be examined in order to
understand whether the Enlightenment and the values that
stemmed from it were secular, as in truly irreligious, or
‘Christian secular’. Its impact on the politico-theological
framework of the European coloniser needs to be examined
as well.
While discussing the Enlightenment, De Roover starts with
a dissection of the idea of religious toleration, which is often
treated as a value that arose out of the Enlightenment. This
makes the value as well as the Enlightenment itself seem
secular and non-Christian because after all, why would a
Christian movement preach toleration for other faith
systems when proselytisation remains one of the
cornerstones of that faith? But did toleration truly have a
non-religious origin? Also, did toleration mean the ability to
practise one’s conscience without being judged or without
having to apprehend proselytisation? These are the
questions that De Roover addresses with scintillating clarity.
To start with, De Roover examines the views of one of the
central figures of the Enlightenment, the English philosopher
John Locke, who contributed significantly to the
development of liberalism with his views on religious
toleration, equality and the concept of rights. De Roover
compares and contrasts two schools of thought—the first
which interprets Locke’s views as liberal and hence secular,
and the second which sees the Protestant framework clearly
at play behind Locke’s positions,28 divorced from which
theological framework and its premises, several of his
claims would be ‘simply unintelligible’. De Roover explains
the relevance of this examination especially for nonChristian societies because a liberal model of toleration that
draws significantly from the Protestant framework is bound
to interfere with the course of such societies, unless they
share the same underlying ontological and theological
premises, which cannot be said of most indigenous
societies. If anything, as discussed in the previous chapters,
the Christian understanding of the relationship between
‘God’, human beings and nature is as divergent as it can get
from those cultures that venerate nature and see
themselves as part of nature and not outside of it. This
effectively undermines any semblance of a common ground
between the worldview of indigenous societies and that of
Christian Europe.
Does this mean that it is not possible to base liberalism on
purely secular values? To answer this, Jeremy Waldron,
professor of law and philosophy, says that while it may be
possible to build the edifice of liberalism and equality on
non-Christian foundations, as a matter of ‘ethical history’ it
must be acknowledged that the ‘modern’ thought around
equality has been shaped by religion, specifically
Christianity.29 He suspects that the contemporary notion of
equality among human beings might fall apart without the
underlying Christian premise. In other words, contemporary
equality and liberalism are, in fact, secularised versions of
Christian equality and Christian liberalism. Given the global
presence of European coloniality, Waldron’s position may
indeed be historically accurate. What this means is that
equality per se as a notion was not unknown to nonChristian societies prior to the advent of the Christian
coloniser; however, every society has the right to define
equality according to its cultural experience sans the
judgement induced by Christian coloniality. Further, to
fashion a universal definition of equality, if at all it is
desirable and possible, it must equally consider nonChristian positions on equality, which has not been the case
thus far.
Coming back to Locke, De Roover reviews Locke’s division
of society into two spheres, namely the civil and the
religious based on his writings in Letter Concerning
Toleration, and highlights the stark similarities between the
Lockean position and the Christian political theology of two
kingdoms and the idea of Christian liberty. The Lockean
premise of the need for civil authority is that humans are
designed to prey on the fruits of others’ labour, and
therefore need civil authority in the non-religious sphere,
which is kept distinct from the religious sphere. De Roover
demonstrates that this is but a secularised replication of the
Christian assumption that humans are stained by sin and
are fundamentally depraved, therefore needing a regnal
authority to rein them in. What is evidently common to the
Protestant and Lockean positions is that the separation of
the civil/temporal and the religious/spiritual is based on
Christian OET. Critically, De Roover recognises that this
distinction may not hold good for non-Christian societies
whose conception of the relationship between temporal and
secular authorities may be very different, assuming that
they even subscribe to such a distinction in the first place.
The limits of Locke’s religious toleration are thrown into
sharp relief when Catholicism and atheism stand excluded
from his idea of toleration, which demonstrates that his
views were clearly informed by the Protestant conception of
true and false religions.
However, the question still remains as to why the
toleration of other faiths and non-faiths would be preached
if the Protestant framework accepted that faith in Christ and
the Christian conception of God were indispensable for
salvation. While Catholics and atheists were excluded from
Locke’s notions of toleration, other thinkers argued for
toleration of Catholics, Jews, Muslims and even pagan ‘devil
worshippers’—contrary to our expectations from a Christianderived idea. The answer to this lies in the concept of
‘toleration’ itself, its source and end goal. First, the concept
of true and false religions, and heresy are embedded in the
Christian understanding of toleration, with toleration here
not being the same as acceptance, mutual respect or
pluralism. Second, toleration of false religions and heretics
was not the product of secular liberal thinking but was the
restatement of the will of God, the Christian God, that no
conscience should be coerced even if it desecrated the will
of God. Third, while the ‘sword of coercion’ was forbidden by
God, the ‘Sword of Gods spirit’, namely the Word of God or
the gospel was certainly permissible. The gospel was
believed to be ‘soul-piercing’ and ‘soul-saving’, and
therefore, the alternative to coercion was proselytisation,
which was deemed benign, biblically sanctioned and even
mandated. Thus, even here, it was Christian liberty at play
with the end goal being realisation of God’s will on earth. In
light of this, there is no escaping the fact that the
Enlightenment’s ‘toleration’ was a secularised fulfillment of
a true Christian’s obligation, namely conversion for
reformation of both Christians and non-Christians. The
political theology of the Protestant Reformation could not
have been written clearer on the walls of the Enlightenment
project.
It is precisely for these reasons that De Roover calls both
secularism and liberalism secularised versions of Christian
onto-epistemology, obscured by the employment of
secularism itself as a filter to understand history. De Roover
is not alone in holding this view. There are others, such as
Carl L. Becker, S.J. Barnett and Elizabeth S. Hurd, who
believe that at the very least the evidence to support the
common assumption that the Enlightenment was a move
away from Christianity towards secular reason is as far as it
can get from being conclusive. That the secularisation of the
Enlightenment is perhaps the consequence of a
retrospective approach to history, appears to be the more
plausible argument. This is because several of the leading
Enlightenment thinkers were pious Christians in a society
heavily committed to Christianity, whose philosophies were
significantly more influenced by Christian thought than they
were comfortable admitting. This may be because
‘orthodoxy’ was passé and it was more acceptable to speak
out against orthodoxy in favour of the new, the ‘modern’,
even in the context of Christianity, which only proves that
even the challenge to Christian orthodoxy was a
conversation within Christianity and not outside of it.30 In
fact, scholars believe that the views of such thinkers were
effectively a manifestation of their desire for a ‘different
kind of Church in a different kind of society’, which
strengthens the case in favour of the Enlightenment’s
Christian character.31 Another strong case in point are the
views of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose
theories and positions on morality were primarily a generic
form of Christianity devoid of the sectarian divide that
defined the times he lived in.32 His contribution was the
individualisation of morality while retaining the distinct
qualities of Christianity.
If the Church was seen as an indispensable institution for
acceptable social peace by even the most radical
Enlightenment thinkers, surely it did not indicate a
departure from a Christian past, but only a much more
secularised approach to Christianity itself, which is the
legacy of the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, the
conclusion that the most ‘secular’ milestone of European
history, namely the Enlightenment, was informed by the
political theology of Protestantism, is a fairly reasonable one
to arrive at given the source of its thought, and its inability
to remain intelligible and consistent when divorced from its
Christian moorings. The Enlightenment represented the
second wave of progressive secularisation of Protestant
Christian OET, which served to advance the political
theology of the Reformation, thereby strengthening the idea
of ‘a true religion’. This idea had a hierarchy of religions,
and hence cultures, embedded in it. Therefore, there is no
reason to avoid the reasonable conclusion that these very
same Enlightened ideas and values informed the European
colonisers, and continue to inform contemporary Western
thought, whose Christian premise both the secularised West
and colonialised former colonies desperately try to deny
despite the evidence stacked against them.
After all, there is no proof that the effect of the
Enlightenment was to question, let alone impede, the march
of European colonialism. If anything, the sanctimony
underlying the notion of true religion, which did not spare
even Catholicism, provided the added impetus to the
religiously inspired, race-driven ‘civilising’ mission of the
colonial project. There is also no evidence to suggest that
the Enlightenment altered the fundamental Christian
understanding of ‘man’s’ relationship with nature or those
who were outside ‘the light of Christianity’, such as
indigenous communities. If the idea of toleration is sought
to be invoked to canvas the secular, liberal and broadminded vision of the Enlightenment, the very writings of the
leading thinkers of this movement only prove the contrary,
that is, whether intentional or otherwise, toleration was a
means to an end—to save the soul of those outside the true
religion, with the Word of God acting as the soul-piercing
sword.
Further, the ‘scientific temper’ that arose out of the
Enlightenment may have actually provided ‘scientific’
justifications for the race consciousness and perceived
superiority of the White Christian European coloniser, as
distilled from the writings of Kant himself. There is enough
literature to suggest that at least until 1795, when Kant
completed the manuscript of Toward Perpetual Peace at the
age of 71, he consciously and openly believed in the
hierarchy of races, and in particular, the superiority of the
Whites over the non-Whites. In 1788, he was of the view
that people from Africa and India lacked the drive to activity,
and hence lacked the mental capacities to be self-motivated
and successful in northern climates.33 To him, the Native
Americans were weak, inert, incapable of any culture and
occupied the lowest rung of the racial hierarchy. For
someone who is credited with the formulation of a
universalist moral theory, until the age of 71, Kant’s belief
that the Whites represented the perfection of humanity was
writ large in his writings. At the very least, it calls into
question the views expressed by Kant during this period on
a host of topics, such as equality and morality, when he
published some of his most seminal works, such as the
Critique of Pure Reason (1781).
In fact, Kant’s views on race were consistent from 1764,
when he was 40 years of age, until 1795. In Observations on
the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764), he wrote that the
black colour of a ‘negro carpenter’ proved the stupidity of
whatever he said and that the difference in the mental
faculties of the Whites and Blacks was as large as the
difference in their colours.34 On the Hindus, he was of the
view that they were superior to the ‘Negroes’ because they
could be educated but only in the arts and not in the
sciences and other subjects that required powers of
abstraction. Of course, there are those who believe that his
subdued approach on race post 1795, after a lifetime of
belief in a racial hierarchy and White superiority as a
scientific fact, was proof of a change of heart.35 What such
apologists fail to understand is that the brunt of Kant’s racedriven morality during his prime years and those of other
Enlightenment thinkers was borne by indigenous societies
because the best minds of the Enlightenment were
comfortable offering pearls of wisdom to the entire world on
morality and equality while openly wearing their White
Christian supremacy on their sleeves. Obviously, this casual
Janusian approach reflected in the conduct of the colonisers
as well in their attitudes towards the non-White, nonChristian, colonised, indigenous societies because they drew
inspiration from their own leading Enlightened thinkers who
normalised such glaring moral inconsistency and hypocrisy
in the most eloquent and ‘scientific’ of manners.
Another important aspect of the Enlightenment is its
manifold enhancement of the universalising and totalising
tendency of the political theology of the Protestant
Reformation by providing supposedly secular, liberal,
scientific, and hence universalist justifications for it, which
fit well with the one-size-fits-all approach of the European
coloniser. One could go a step further and state that the
utter conviction of the Enlightenment thinkers in their
universalist and inflexible approach to questions of morality
and values, without any regard for the peculiar experiences
and conditions of each culture/civilisation, may have
inspired the colonialists further and bolstered their inherent
coloniality.36 In this regard, it must be borne in mind that the
attitude of such thinkers was distinctly Christian because
the idea of one God and/or one universal morality for all
peoples was at the heart of this thought notwithstanding the
secular and liberal labels they may have congratulated
themselves with. Therefore, the temporal overlap between
the Enlightenment and the prime years of colonialism,
including the very birth of contemporary notions of
modernity, cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence.37
Even if one were to take into account the fact that a few
Enlightenment thinkers may have objected to the cruel
treatment of indigenous peoples at the hands of the White
Christian European coloniser, two aspects undermine such
apologia: first, the objection was perhaps limited to the
treatment of colonised peoples but not to the colonisation
project itself, because ‘civilising’ the non-Christian lesser
mortal was part of their ‘toleration’ project; and second, the
so-called secular liberal thinkers of that period did not deem
it fit to take into account indigenous views on morality and
ethics in formulating their universalist theories. That they
never felt the need to offer indigenous views an equal place
at the high-table of human thought as a matter of right, and
not privilege, is proof enough of their patronising approach
to indigenous worldviews. Surely it cannot be argued on
their behalf that their egalitarianism can be presumed
despite an express absence of dialogue with the indigenous
peoples in the formulation of universalist theories which
treated Europe and its civilisation as the centre of the
universe. Clearly, there is a need for more honest
conversations around the dark side of the Enlightenment,
particularly from the perspective of formerly colonised
societies, most of which have suffered irreversible all-round
harm.
The contemporary and practical relevance of such
conversations from an indigenous perspective is the urgent
need to acknowledge the Protestant-inspired, raceconscious coloniality of the political structure established by
the European coloniser in colonies. The second critical
takeaway, in my opinion and in which I am supported by the
work of De Roover and others including Mignolo,38 is that the
presumptions of secularity, liberality, neutrality, equality
and universality—which are imputed to the Enlightenment
and its values—are seriously rebuttable, circumspect and,
dare I say, even baseless. As stated earlier, extending such
presumptions would be downright dishonest in the context
of the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised.
Third, in light of the first two conclusions, surviving
indigenous civilisations that were formerly colonised have
the right to reclaim their worldviews and draw from them to
redefine their political landscapes, which impact all aspects
of their lives, in particular their right to practise their ways
of life without having to prove themselves on the anvils of
European values and benchmarks. One cannot underscore
enough the importance of this form of agency since despite
attaining ‘political independence’, former colonies that
became new entrants to the club of nation-states were
expected to be mere ‘passive participants’ in the
Eurocentric world order.
In this club, concepts, such as nation-statehood and
sovereignty, were predefined with no scope for indigenous
contribution. Those who did not play by these rules were
treated as outliers to the ‘world order’ and subjected to
constant
judgement
stemming
from
never-ending
Reformation-style sanctimony and virtue-signalling, which
remains the position till date. Indigenous societies with
varied forms of precolonial social and political organisation
were expected to rearrange themselves to conform to the
definition of nation-statehood, which required the
domination of one particular ethno-linguistic or religious
group over all others so as to become a largely homogenous
‘nation’ with safe spaces created for ‘minorities’.
To say that this triggered a competitive tussle for
identification/creation of ethnicities and ethnic domination
in indigenous societies would be an understatement. The
ones to suffer the most were plural and diverse civilisational
societies, such as Bharat, that were linked internally by
millennia of coexistence wherein no single marker, such as
ethnicity or language or the Christian concept of religion,
could be used to make sense of their oneness, which was
more a lived reality. In such societies, owing to the pressure
of nation-statehood, every marker of identity, real or
artificial, became the foundation for identifying the in-group
and the out-group, thereby creating multiple centrifugal
forces that led to competitive nationalism. This is not to say
that the idea of in- and out-groups was absent prior to the
advent of the European coloniser. However, indigenous
societies had certainly evolved processes and mechanisms
through traditions developed over ages to retain diverse
individual as well as group identities, and yet coexist with
others in relative harmony. The expectations that came with
the imposition of a nation-statehood posed a unique
challenge to their own conceptions of political unity, which
they could not avoid or overcome given the Europeanised
world they now existed in.
To overcome the fissiparous tendencies created by the
imposition of nation-statehood, colonies upon achieving
independence were forced to adopt legal mechanisms to
preserve their integrity, the foremost of which was a
constitution
that
was
populated
by
Enlightened
Europeanism. Naturally, over time, the constitution, which
was initially intended to be a means to forge a nation-state
and was a product of necessity, was elevated to the status
of a religious document. In short, the means became an end
in itself and, to make matters worse, thanks to the colonial
values subscribed to by the constitutions of decolonised
societies, the space for indigenous ways of life started
shrinking once again. The only difference was that this time
the political structure was helmed not by the European
coloniser but by the colonialised native who was a new
convert to constitutionalism, constitutional morality and
ultimately Europeanism/Western-normativism. It is precisely
for these reasons that constitutionalism and its coloniality
warrant a closer look.
Coloniality/Modernity and ‘Enlightened’
Constitutionalism: The New True Religion of Former
Colonies
From the history of the Protestant Reformation, the genesis
and globalisation of the Westphalian civilisation and the
Enlightenment discussed thus far, it is evident that these
European milestones distinctly shaped and strengthened
European coloniality, which, in turn, reflected in the political
structure established in the colonies. Therefore, it should
come as no surprise that the ideas and values of these
milestones formed the basis of the constitutions introduced
in the colonies by the coloniser. Among them, the most
cardinal is the conception of colonised societies as nationstates—the grundnorm of Western political organisation.
When European nation-states emerged following the
Peace of Westphalia, they were still a part of Christian
Europe, with the three Christian denominations vying for the
status of the true religion. Therefore, notwithstanding the
internal fissures, conversations and debates, they were
united in their stated goal of the expansion of the
boundaries of Christianity through conquest of the New
World. In other words, Christian nation-states were acutely
alive to the religious-territorial canvas they were located
within, which means that their nation-statehood was
Christian in nature with a clear focus on demarcating their
respective territories within Christian Europe. To impute
secular nation-statehood to such States reflects wishful
thinking on the part of those that view history with rosetinted glasses.
In stark contrast to the ‘Christian secular’ character of
European nation-states, the secularised model of nation-
statehood that was exported to the colonies required the
natives to abandon their consciousness and start on a clean
slate on the assumption that their identities began only with
the arrival of the coloniser to whom the only acceptable
form of political organisation was that of a nation-state. As a
consequence, most colonies embraced nationalism of the
territorial kind, which altered their priorities significantly.
The deprivation of a cultural or civilisational anchor to their
‘modern’ identities meant that their visions of the past,
present and future were limited to merely preserving
territorial integrity while constantly ceding space on
civilisational
integrity
to
coloniality.
Thenceforth,
civilisational consciousness and integrity would be the
exclusive preserve of Western imperialism, while the rest of
the world was expected to abandon its roots, reduced to a
mere source of primary data for the West to analyse,
thereby handing them the power to theorise and formulate
abstract universals even after decolonisation.
Along with the internalisation of nation-statehood,
concepts, such as separation of the Church and the State
(‘secularism’), separation of powers, ‘toleration’, ‘liberty’
and notions of rights and duties, were secularised with a
view to universalise them. These ‘secular’ values found their
way into ‘national’ constitutions, with the colonised natives
being oblivious to the underlying Protestant origins of the
Eurocentric abstract universals. In effect, national
constitutions became the codified fount of coloniality and
morphed into secular yet sacred instrumentalities through
which Eurocentrism could be amplified and perpetuated in
colonies.39 In light of this, it can be argued that colonial
constitutionalism represents the third wave of secularisation
and universalisation of Protestantism as well as the
institutionalisation of the coloniality/modernity/rationality
matrix, whose contours were fleshed out by the
Enlightenment, the so-called Age of Reason. Naturally, the
never-ending process of conversion and its end goal, namely
reformation, were given a pride of place in an ostensibly
secular legal instrument, namely constitution, whose claim
of neutrality in relation to indigenous worldviews was as
true as a modern-day politician’s promise.
While the adoption of national constitutions facilitated the
creation of political entities which could now be called
nation-states, this was largely a product of colonial
imposition through ‘international law’ as discussed earlier,
and not necessarily reflective of the irrelevance of other
forms of political organisation. The irony of the situation was
that on the one hand former colonies had to rely on their
past to stake a claim for their nation-statehood, and on the
other hand to be accepted into the ‘commonwealth of
civilised States’, they had to embrace modernity and sever
ties with their past. Naturally, these tensions affected the
making of their constitutions, with coloniality more often
than not having the upper hand. Consequently, under
constitutions imbued with coloniality and a strained
relationship with the past, the colonialised nation-states
donned the robes of a contemporary Martin Luther, holding
forth from the bully pulpit and calling for the reform of the
native under the authority of the new Bible, namely the
constitution. Even today, in such societies, each arm of the
State competes with the other to modernise and reform the
native under the authority conferred by the constitution,
which has become the source of Statist morality that is to
be enforced top-down with no meaningful participation from
or dialogue with the native. For all their claims of having
transitioned to a republican and democratic form of
government, nation-states in most former colonies have
retained hegemony over questions of morals, ethics, faith
and in general OET systems, much akin to the ecclesiastical
approach.
Ironically, under this structure of government in
decolonised societies, the judiciary in particular has
gradually come to occupy a similar position as the Roman
Catholic Church, wielding the same impervious authority
while dispensing Protestant and Enlightenment values on
both secular and religious matters. In that sense, instead of
decentralising morality and allowing the society’s
indigenous cultural moorings to inform law and policy, blind
and unthinking constitutionalism has effectively contributed
to the concentration of totalising powers over morality and
worldview in the hands of unelected institutions and
individuals. While the monasticised Roman Catholic Church
served the true God, the true religion and Christ, and
advanced the process of conversion towards reformation of
man in the image of God, modern day constitutional
institutions serve colonial constitutionalism and advance the
cause of reformation of the native society in the image of
the European civilisation, perhaps under the belief that the
native society’s salvation lies in Westernisation.
This process of constitutional conversion of the indigenous
society takes the shape of ‘transformative constitutionalism’
or ‘progressive constitutionalism’, both of which suffer from
varying degrees of coloniality. One is alive to the fact that
transformative constitutionalism may land differently in
different jurisdictions depending on their respective histories
and socio-economic conditions. For instance, in South Africa,
transformative constitutionalism represents the transition
from an apartheid State to a democratic society, which has
even facilitated decolonialisation, and hence Africanisation
of legal education.40 In contrast, in countries like Bharat,
transformative constitutionalism has led to the severing of
ties between the civilisational ethos of Bharat and the
evolution of constitutional jurisprudence. This is attributable
to the fundamental differences in historical premise and end
goals that inform such transformative constitutionalism. If
the premise is rooted in colonialised versions of indigenous
history,
it
is
but
natural
that
transformative
constitutionalism constantly sees the need to reform the
native out of his/her identity. On the contrary, if the
historical premise is the recognition of deep-seated
coloniality in every aspect of the society, which is sought to
be addressed, transformative constitutionalism could lead to
shifting the locus of onto-epistemology and consciousness
from the West to the indigenous society.
Having said this, the fact remains that the politico-legal
structures of several ‘independent’ former colonies under
the auspices of national constitutions present a curious
incongruity wherein Catholicised institutions advance
secularised and Enlightened Protestant OET, with the
consequence being that the indigenous worldview invariably
gets the rough end of the stick. This is borne out by the fact
that in order to avail of the ‘fundamental rights’ guaranteed
by constitutions, indigenous OET systems have had to
conform to colonial definitions of ‘religion’, ‘religious
denomination’ and the like, which are clearly rooted in
Christian OET. Therefore, indigenous OETs developed over
several millennia have had to approximate and truncate
themselves to conform to a political theology that is barely
half a millennium old and whose approach to those outside
its fold is one of ‘toleration’ until the Word of God pierces
and saves the native soul. Further, indigenous beliefs are
expected to pass muster on the evidentiary anvils inspired
by two sources: the first is the Christian need for a written
scripture or the indigenous equivalent of the Word of God,
and the second is that indigenous practices, traditions and
beliefs have had to satisfy the all-important condition
precedent of ‘reason’, that is, secularised, Protestant OET.
Those practices which fail to acquit themselves on these
benchmarks and standards are branded ‘orthodox’,
‘traditional’ and ‘anachronistic’, gradually leading to
Protestantisation of indigenous OET systems. Naturally, the
colonial constitutional framework in most former colonies,
while promising equality, has been loaded with values that
are more conducive to the Christian worldview. In societies
that still have surviving non-Christian populations, the
indigenous worldview finds itself constantly on the backfoot,
torn between its commitment to keep its way of life alive
and the constitutional expectation to validate itself in order
to stave off legally sanctioned extinction.
For instance, it is a documented fact that despite the
American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, which
expressly acknowledges and guarantees the right of Native
Americans to practise their indigenous forms of spirituality
and worship, they have frequently found themselves in
court in an effort to protect their rights. Despite putting faith
in the legal process and the promise of equality enshrined in
the American constitution, their sacred sites have been
destroyed to build roads in the name of development.41 To
assume that such treatment is limited to countries where
the natives do not enjoy numerical strength is to
underestimate and misunderstand the entrenchment of
coloniality.
Even in societies that are still predominantly nonChristian, such as Bharat, the indigenous identity (barring a
few pockets) has largely been ‘secularised’, which means
that the situation of the practitioners of indigenous faith
systems in Bharat is not vastly different from that of the
Native Americans. Apart from having to constitutionally
validate themselves, practitioners of indigenous OET
systems have had to suffer exotification, misrepresentation,
appropriation, stereotyping and exploitation in the very
lands of their origin thanks to, among other things, ‘tourism’
and ‘development’, which have gradually pushed them into
ever-shrinking enclaves where they can only hope to
practise whatever remains of their way of life without
interference or ridicule or ‘modern scrutiny’. In fact, since
such practitioners have to contend with the colonialised
from among their own community as well as the State
establishment, their ordeal is much more arduous but they
have fewer sympathisers because they are supposedly part
of the ‘majority’. The harsh reality, however, is that such
practitioners are a minority within a numerical majority, with
the numerical majority itself being a colonialised global
minority. This makes the practitioners of indigenous ways of
life a micro-minority, who may perhaps be the last surviving
members of their cultures and civilisations.
To add to it, in order to demonstrate their ‘tolerance’ by
virtue of being the ‘majority’, surviving indigenous global
minorities are expected to remain mum about their
histories. This is one of the lesser appreciated ramifications
of modern constitutionalism, given its propensity to
secularise history, which has a direct impact on education
policy in general, and specifically on the shaping of
curriculum. Not only is the past secularised to ostensibly
further constitutional goals and morality, indigenous
peoples are expected to silently accommodate the
proselytising overtures of colonising OET systems in the
present. The constitutional fiction that requires such
accommodation on the part of indigenous peoples to their
own detriment is that all OET systems are the same in their
make-up and therefore, deserve equal treatment under the
law. The net result is that non-Christian indigenous societies
are left with no option but to subscribe to a secular identity
and offer equal opportunity and space to the coloniser’s
faith in order to demonstrate their commitment to liberal
constitutional values. Clearly, the notions of a ‘level playing
field’ are, to put it mildly, examples of dark legal fictions in
view of the history of at least the last five centuries, ever
since the dice was loaded against indigenous worldviews.
What makes matters worse is the sense of religiosity with
which constitutions are approached in former colonies,
almost as if to prove with vengeance their modern, secular
and liberal bona fides to their erstwhile colonial masters,
and to earn their validation as ‘civilised nations of laws’. In
short, the message that is being conveyed by the
colonialised
native
is
that
‘we
are
no
less
European/Western/modern/rational and therefore, your
equals’ instead of saying ‘we do not wish to be
European/Western, for we are comfortable in our skin and
our subjectivities’. It is this deep-seated coloniality and
sense of cultural/civilisational inferiority among colonialised
natives that has given rise to bizarre creatures, such as
‘constitutional
patriotism’.
Professing
allegiance
to
constitutionalism is understandable; however, it is a
reflection of coloniality when constitutional patriots lose
sight of what ought to have been or perhaps is the very
object of the constitution’s protection, namely preservation
and perpetuation of indigeneity and its right to agency.
In short, it is a textbook case of missing the forest for the
trees, since such constitutional patriotism has no sense of
history or consciousness that is rooted in indigeneity. This
makes it detrimental to the indigenous worldview since the
colonialised constitutional patriot has already bought into
Eurocentrism/Western-normativism either consciously or
otherwise, thereby turning into an ambassador and
evangelist for the coloniality/modernity/rationality complex.
That their identity as a member of the indigenous
community has been weaponised to act against indigenous
consciousness is lost in the incoherent and self-absorbed din
of modernity, rationality and constitutional patriotism.
Given that in contemporary nation-states constitutions as
documents create multiplier effects by serving as
launchpads for mass enforcement of ideas not just on the
politico-economic front but also on the larger civilisational
canvas, the priority of former colonies must be to first
decolonialise this document so that indigeneity finds its
rightful place first within its own territory of origin before it
can hope to take its rightful place as an equal at the global
high table. After all, there is no denying the fact that the
effect of contemporary constitutionalism, at least in former
colonies, has become such that it is all-pervasive, which is a
reflection of its totalising nature given its entrenched
coloniality.
Therefore, the constitution—the supreme law, the fount of
constitutional morality, the document which contains the
original intent—must be the primary subject of decolonial
scholarship and efforts in indigenous societies while they
still have the power to restore their agency over their
consciousness and accord indigeneity its rightful place. After
all, if indigeneity has no respect in the land of its birth in the
context of law and policymaking and is relegated to a mere
ornamental talking point, it cannot hope to be taken
seriously in a colonialised modern world.
While thus far the discussion has revolved around the
origins and character of coloniality, modernity and
rationality, it is equally important to understand the
response, namely decoloniality, indigeneity, subjectivity and
relationality. It is also imperative to understand what they
do not stand for because it is easy to mistake them as codes
for ‘xenophobia’, ‘ethnonationalism’ and several other
cognate pejoratives that are typically used to label, and
hence stigmatise the indigenous perspective. Accordingly, in
the next chapter, I will unpack decoloniality, indigeneity,
subjectivity and relationality which shall set the tone for the
next two sections of this book.
5
Decoloniality, Indigeneity,
Subjectivity and Relationality
Native Americans worshipping the Sun
Depiction of the Native Americans worshipping the Sun with a harvest offering.
The skin of a large stag was stuffed with vegetables and carried to a clearing in
the forest on the first day of spring. It was mounted on a pole and prayers would
be offered to the Sun for a bountiful harvest (Courtesy of University of South
Florida).
In the first chapter, I had undertaken a brief and broad
discussion on four schools of thought, namely:
1. the modernist school, which puts stock in Eurocentric
universalism and believes in its continued relevance;
2. the postmodern school, which rejects this universalist
claim predominantly in the realm of culture;
3. the postcolonial school, which is in the neighbourhood
of the postmodern school and critiques colonialism and
its Eurocentrism primarily in the political realm, albeit
without deconstructing its fundamentals; and
4. the decolonial school, which goes beyond the
postcolonial school by identifying the existence of
European coloniality even after decolonisation, dissects
its OET foundations and seeks to unshackle indigeneity
from the universal fictions of coloniality.
For the purposes of the discussion here, I have consciously
limited the scope primarily to understanding the areas of
intersection and exclusion between the postcolonial and
decolonial schools as the former already has a strong base
in Bharat and the latter is yet to be fully tapped into as an
alternative. To this end, I am interested in bringing out the
inherent limitations of postcolonialism (and its offspring,
subaltern studies)1 in addressing the OET framework
underlying the colonial legacy, apart from failing to
empower the indigenous voice. In fact, from what I have
read, postcolonialism has reinforced colonial stereotypes of
the indigenous worldview, which is precisely why the
viability of decoloniality as an alternative must be seriously
considered. While in the second section of the book I will
attempt to make a Bharat-specific case for the application of
decoloniality, in this chapter I will generally lay out the
reasons for taking this position.
‘De’colonial, Not ‘Post’colonial
Be it an individual or a society, neither must cede or
surrender the inherent and fundamental right to self-
definition or self-determination to an external entity. To give
up this most intimate form of agency is to externalise the
locus of one’s consciousness and its most tangible outward
manifestation—identity. This alienation then takes a life of
its own and is extremely difficult to reverse and reclaim.
However, no matter how arduous the process of
reclamation, no self-respecting society has the option of
lacking or losing the will to take back its right to define the
self. What would be worse is for a society to believe that it is
better off living in the yawning shadow of a contemptuously
overwritten version of its self by another. This is because it
would signify a complete and utter failure to not only
understand the value of the right to self-definition but also
everything else of value that emanates from it.
From the point of view of former colonies, the framework
that facilitates a more rounded and complete reclamation of
their agency over their consciousness sans coloniality is the
one that is most suited for their re-emergence. It is for this
reason that the decolonial school merits consideration since
identification of coloniality by Aníbal Quijano represents one
of the most significant contributions to understanding the
cause underlying the cause, namely European coloniality
and its continuing after-effects. In other words, decolonial
thought appears to have understood the motivation
underlying European colonialism better than other schools
of thought, as reflected by the discussion undertaken in the
previous chapters. The idea of coloniality is what
distinguishes the decolonial from the older postcolonial
school because it encapsulates a grand unified theory of
sorts within itself that explains the mental constitution of
the coloniser. It necessarily leads to a line of enquiry that
examines the very OET framework upon which the colonial
edifice rested, and allows us to follow the pattern of thought
which manifested itself consistently regardless of the
nationality of the European coloniser or the geography of
colonisation. Critically, it enables us to see through the
coloniality of contemporary structures. Having recognised
the tendency of the coloniser to obsessively universalise the
European provincial worldview through secularization,2
decoloniality steers clear of the same mistakes and instead
believes in a pluriversal approach, thereby enabling the
coexistence of diverse subjectivities.
In contrast, postcolonial thought does not engage in the
deconstruction of the coloniser’s colonial consciousness, but
merely questions the fairness of the coloniser’s treatment of
indigenous societies and registers its objection to the
imposition of Eurocentrism on the colonised.3 While the
postmodern foundations of postcolonialism translate to an
irreverent challenge to Eurocentric modernity, both the
language and terms of challenge are rooted in
Europeanism.4 Starting from an understanding of time and
history, postcolonial thought, while rejecting the claims of
the coloniser, draws liberally from his OET to view
indigenous histories and succumbs to the Christian
European trait of universalisation of a particular worldview.5
In other words, postcolonialism is oblivious to its subliminal
acceptance of coloniality through its own version of
coloniality, which results in what is at best a critical study of
the atrocities and impact of colonialism, but not an
examination of its undergirding. While it challenges colonial
authority, it falls significantly short of providing an
alternative rooted in indigeneity that can facilitate its
reclamation.6 Also, postcolonialism fails to recognise the
omnipresence of coloniality in contemporary structures and
relationships, which explains its ‘post’ as well as highlights
its limitation in empowering indigeneity.7 After all, how can it
offer a solution to a problem it is oblivious to?
In terms of timelines, while postcolonialism focusses
mostly on the eighteenth century and thereafter, that is,
from the Enlightenment onward, decoloniality pushes it
further back to the fifteenth century, starting with
Columbus’ expedition of 1492, which it believes to be the
beginning of the Age of Discovery and therefore, of
colonisation and evangelisation. Postcolonial critique is
typically associated with Bharat8 and Palestine, whereas
decoloniality is traced to Latin America.9 Postcolonialism
unconsciously accepts the West’s conception and
monopolisation of time and subjectivity, whereas
decoloniality rejects this monopoly because it explicitly
believes in the coexistence of multiple subjectivities. The
former is unable to see, which the latter does, that Western
imperialism flows from the same fount of coloniality. It is for
these reasons that scholars believe that postcolonial
critique is itself in dire need of a decolonial approach.
Decoloniality, according to Walter D. Mignolo, is a political
project which recognises that coloniality, modernity and
rationality are inseparable and therefore, the relevance of
decoloniality is determined by the presence or absence of
coloniality.10 Its response to the modernity/rationality
complex is indigeneity, subjectivity and relationality. The
primary goal of decoloniality, according to Quijano, is
‘epistemological decolonisation’ to enable a new form of
intercultural communication.11 Simply put, it seeks to release
production of knowledge from the stranglehold of the West,
which could lead to greater diversity of thought and
subjectivity, in particular, resurgence and re-existence of
indigenous perspectives which Quijano12 and Mignolo13 also
refer to as ‘epistemic reconstitution’.14 This translates to
relocation of the geography and biography of knowledge to
native peoples who are best placed to address their own
vulnerabilities instead of having to operate within the
Eurocentric universalist lines painted by the coloniser.
Among other things, this requires indigenous societies to
question the European paradigm of rationality that is
predicated on Cartesian dualism since it informs perhaps
the most important aspect of Western civilisation, namely its
approach to nature, and hence to non-Christian cultures.
This subject–object lens of Cartesian dualism has affected
the crucial disciplines of anthropology and ethnology,
thereby reducing the people of the non-West to the status of
objects of study.
While recognising the totalising and totalitarian nature of
coloniality, decoloniality does not reject the idea of totality
in its entirety; instead, it posits that the scope of colonial
totality must be restricted to the European community with
the intent of liberating the production of knowledge in the
rest of the world from the European complex.15 This is
because it recognises that every culture’s vision includes a
perspective of totality. However, what distinguishes
indigenous perspectives from the European is that the
former’s vision accommodates and acknowledges the
desirability of heterogeneity and diversity, whereas the
latter insists on homogeneity, which is traceable to its
Christian OET. This insatiable need of the European coloniser
to homogenise and standardise, inspired by religious and
hence racial supremacism, even distinguishes European
colonialism from pre-Christian Roman imperialism, which
brings out in stark relief the coloniality of European Christian
colonisation. In other words, diversity of thought and
experience perhaps found greater acceptance under preChristian Roman imperialism than under European
colonialism, which is attributable to the latter’s Christian
character.
What makes decoloniality more appealing as an option
compared to postcolonial critique is that it draws its
strength and vitality from the fact that unlike coloniality, it is
not bound by one universal definition. This fundamental
character of decoloniality is underscored by scholars, such
as Catherine E. Walsh and Mignolo, who acknowledge that
decoloniality is meant to be subjective and contextual and
therefore, to provide abstract universals may go against its
very grain.16 Their stated claim and object of interest is
relationality, that is, opening up conversations between
different local histories and practices of decoloniality so that
the ‘politico-epistemic violence of modernity’ can be
contested everywhere. Their emphasis on relationality is
precisely to drive home the point that there is no one way to
‘do and conceive decoloniality’, which also means that each
society has the right to define what constitutes coloniality in
its context. Importantly, to ensure that decoloniality is not
relegated to the ivory towers of academia, they underscore
that decoloniality is ‘a way, an option, a standpoint, an
analytic, a project, practice, and praxis’. It rejects the
tendency to compartmentalise theory and praxis, and insists
that since coloniality is primarily a state of mind, to
challenge colonial thought by presenting the decolonial
perspective is as much praxis as it is theory.
Walsh and Mignolo categorically assert that a decolonial
world cannot be and, might I add, must not be built using
the conceptual tools of the Renaissance and the
Enlightenment. Other scholars, such as Ramón Grosfoguel,
also subscribe to this position because they believe that the
non-West is responding to Eurocentrism with Eurocentric
solutions; which explains the rise of European-style
nationalism in former colonies instead of responses that are
more rooted in their own cultures and civilisations.17 As
opposed to questioning the European expectation and
benchmark of ‘civilised nations’ using indigenous thought,
former colonies seem more eager to join the club of civilised
nation-states to prove that they are not ‘savages’ anymore.
That this generates a form of internal coloniality that
strengthens the European worldview, especially in the
political realm, is lost sight of. The other extreme of the nonWest’s response is to reject the validity of everything that
has emanated from Europe without realising that some of
the so-called European contributions may, in fact, be
products of acculturation that the coloniser may have
misappropriated
from
indigenous
cultures
without
attribution.
In light of the above, a middle path has been proposed,
which insists on greater dialogue between the West and the
non-West with the clear acknowledgement by the West of
the skewed power relations and the coloniality of the system
as it exists. The decolonial approach gives the non-West the
option of not playing by the rules of the West, especially in
the political realm, which allows them to think outside the
Westphalian box. In this sense, decoloniality is a form of
measured ‘epistemic disobedience’, which is not limited in
its application to a particular sphere. Such an approach has
been described as a move towards a ‘decolonialised
transmodern world’ which presents two options to
indigenous societies—the first allows them to fully reinscribe indigenous OET by reconceptualising values and
institutions; and should that not be possible or feasible, the
second envisages formulation of creative alternative
definitions based on indigenous onto-epistemologies for socalled European values.18 Depending on an indigenous
society’s conviction and taking into consideration the
integrated nature of the contemporary world, it may choose
between the two. From a practical standpoint, what this
means is that a decolonialised indigenous society can
choose to completely overhaul its political structure based
on its indigenous traditions, or retain the skeletal structure
inherited from the coloniser and infuse it with the
indigenous spirit by defining the role of the State and the
concept of rights and duties based on its native ontoepisteme. This also means either doing away with the
imported ideological divides of the Left, the Right and the
Centre, or redefining them based on indigenous intellectual
traditions and experience.
Interestingly, scholars of decoloniality acknowledge and
agree that the Eurocentric colonialities of such ideological
divides in every jurisdiction, especially in the non-West,
must be confronted. In fact, of pertinence to Bharat is the
view of scholars, such as Ramón Grosfoguel, that the Left’s
underestimation of the coloniality ingrained within
contemporary structures is responsible for the second-class
treatment of indigenous populations in the non-West,
though under ostensibly indigenous governments.19 Such
treatment of indigenous masses in decolonised societies by
colonialised native elites in the political and intellectual
establishments inherited from the coloniser, with the
support of the international Left, has caused significant
disillusionment with the international Left’s so-called
commitment to truth and justice.
The other critical aspect that emerges from the decolonial
approach is its primary focus on resuscitation of indigenous
onto-epistemologies (‘knowledge’) as opposed to being
exclusively mired in exclusionary ethnocentrism (‘race’),
which has informed colonialism and afflicts postcolonialism
as well. In other words, decoloniality cannot be conflated
with or accused of defending ‘identity politics’ the way it is
currently understood.20 Instead, it approaches the question
of ‘consciousness’, and not merely identity (there being a
clear distinction between the two), from an OET perspective
for two reasons: first, most contemporary national and intranational or sub-national identities are the products of
colonial remapping of geographies and creation of
identities, and therefore cannot form the basis of a
decolonial approach; and second, a purely ethno-centric
approach to culture is characteristic of coloniality which
decoloniality seeks to counter.21 Simply stated, a North
American-style ethnocentric blood quantum-based approach
to issues of culture, consciousness and indigeneity have
been largely steered clear of by the decolonial school since
it uses OET of a society as its primary marker. This is in
contradistinction to coloniality’s embedded Christianinspired race consciousness, which is projected on to every
indigenous movement, whether or not ethnic consciousness
is material to it. Therefore, decoloniality’s attempts at deracialisation of indigeneity to the extent permitted by
indigenous
worldviews
pre-empts
labels,
such
as
ethnonationalism and xenophobia, which are often used to
undermine the legitimacy of indigenous movements.
It is important to clarify that decoloniality does not turn a
blind eye to issues of ethnicity, including historic realities,
where ethnicity has formed the basis of discrimination by
the coloniser. However, its prism of enquiry is largely, if not
exclusively, based on the ‘culture is a way of life’ approach
which recognises that a culture or a civilisation is the
product of several influences. Further, decoloniality seeks to
rid both ‘culture’ and ‘civilisation’ of its colonial code, an
exercise integral to the freeing of indigenous societies from
the burden of having to demonstrate their cultured and
civilised status on Western-normative benchmarks.
One of the reasons ethnicity is perhaps but one of the
components of a decolonial approach, as opposed to being
the sole, is the recognition that an exclusively ethnocentric
approach can be a slippery slope, given the constant
migration or invasion or intermingling of peoples in history.
It is for this reason that decoloniality pays more attention to
the relationship between an OET framework which informs
consciousness, and a culture or a civilisation. The corollary
to and consequence of this OET-based approach to
consciousness is that it accommodates and is alive to the
fact that just as there are colonialised natives who subscribe
to the European worldview despite not sharing the race of
the coloniser, so are there decolonialised non-natives who
are committed to protecting indigenous OETs despite not
sharing the native ethnicity. After all, if coloniality is a state
of mind that cuts across ethnicities, so should decoloniality,
which too is a state of mind.
At this juncture, it is also important to address another
aspect of indigenous societies, namely hereditary social
structures, which have been burdened with ethnocentrism
without basis as a consequence of the coloniser’s raceconscious approach to colonised societies. In other words,
indigenous societies and their traditional social structures
have been unfairly saddled with the West’s new-found guilt
complex in respect of its race consciousness. In this regard,
the decolonial approach should be to understand such
structures through the indigenous lens sans colonial biases,
and it must be left to each indigenous society to determine
the contemporary purchase of such structures based on its
OET without being burdened by the guilt-racked conscience
of the West. This would be consistent with decoloniality’s
commitment to diversity. This point shall be explained better
in the context of discussions surrounding ‘caste’ and ‘tribe’
in and about Bharat in the next section of the book.
The sum and substance of the preceding discussion is
that, wherever possible, without doing injustice to
indigenous worldviews, a decolonial approach to indigeneity
with an intent to preserve indigenous consciousness will be
able to better navigate the seemingly uncomfortable yet
inescapable realities, such as identifying the in-group and
out-group, to the indigenous worldview. Unfortunately, the
very suggestion to identify in- and out-groups is bound to
ruffle quite a few feathers and invite criticisms of
‘parochiality’, ‘narrow-mindedness’ and so on and so forth,
but the fact is that even in the contemporary ‘modern’ and
‘liberal’ world, these are the very issues that public
discourse, law and policymaking revolve around, especially
when questions of heritage, identity and access to resources
are involved. Neither modernity nor liberalism has been able
to do away with ‘identity politics’. If anything, their innate
coloniality has pushed such discussions further into the
arms of ethnocentrism, particularly in indigenous societies
like Bharat. Consequently, since othering is a reality of life
that cannot be avoided, it is better to do so on the basis of
consciousness as opposed to ‘identity’. Accordingly, from a
decolonial perspective, it would help to define indigeneity
on the basis of consciousness instead of identity.
Having said this, throughout the discussion undertaken
thus far, I have used ‘indigenous/indigeneity’ to distinguish
the coloniser from the colonised. I have also attempted to
explain that decoloniality’s approach to indigeneity is
primarily OET-centric as opposed to being purely
ethnocentric since ethnocentrism and race-consciousness
are central to coloniality. In the interest of honesty,
conceptual clarity and consistency, and given the centrality
of indigeneity to decoloniality, it is important to unpack the
concept of indigeneity in further detail to bring out its
assumptions and layers.
The Decolonial Evolution from ‘Indigenous Peoples’ to
‘Indigeneity’
Before I proceed to discuss the use of ‘indigenous peoples’
and ‘indigeneity’ in decolonial literature, it must be
appreciated that the need for identification of indigenous
peoples and making sense of indigeneity has arisen as a
result of colonization, which has irreparably devastated the
ways of life of the colonised. Therefore, the identification of
the self in this case has been necessitated by the
domination of the self by the other to whom othering was
central to his worldview as opposed to being a mere part.
Thanks to coloniality, othering has occupied centre stage,
notwithstanding the current-day professions of universalism,
globalism and cosmopolitanism, all of which rest on the
colonial foundations of universalisation of Western provincial
thought.
In the ensuing portions, I shall first discuss international
law that deals with ‘indigenous peoples’ before discussing
the position of decolonial scholarship on indigeneity. While
there are at least a dozen international instruments that
deal with various rights of indigenous peoples,22 this legal
prelude is limited to the assessment of whether discussions
on law and policymaking in relation to ‘indigenous peoples’
are informed by coloniality and therefore, warrant a
decolonial review. As part of this, I shall also examine if the
law recognises the distinction between indigenous peoples
and indigeneity.
Among the earliest organisations to work on issues
relating to ‘indigenous peoples’ was the International Labour
Organization (ILO), which adopted the Indigenous and Tribal
Populations Convention in 1957.23 Although this Convention
does not contain a specific definition for indigenous peoples,
Article 1 enumerates the scope of the Convention’s
application as follows:
1. This Convention applies to:
(a) members of tribal or semi-tribal populations in
independent countries whose social and economic
conditions are at a less advanced stage than the stage
reached by the other sections of the national
community, and whose status is regulated wholly or
partially by their own customs or traditions or by special
laws or regulations;
(b) members of tribal or semi-tribal populations in
independent countries which are regarded as
indigenous on account of their descent from the
populations which inhabited the country, or a
geographical region to which the country belongs, at the
time of conquest or colonisation and which, irrespective
of their legal status, live more in conformity with the
social, economic and cultural institutions of that time
than with the institutions of the nation to which they
belong.
2. For the purposes of this Convention, the term semitribal includes groups and persons who, although they
are in the process of losing their tribal characteristics,
are not yet integrated into the national community.
3. The indigenous and other tribal or semi-tribal
populations mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this
Article are referred to hereinafter as ‘the populations
concerned’ [emphases added].
A second Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Populations
was adopted by the ILO in 1989, in which a similar approach
to those who were the intended beneficiaries was taken,
which is set out below24:
Article 1
1. This Convention applies to:
(a) tribal peoples in independent countries whose
social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish
them from other sections of the national community,
and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their
own customs or traditions or by special laws or
regulations;
(b) peoples in independent countries who are
regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from
the populations which inhabited the country, or a
geographical region to which the country belongs, at the
time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of
present state boundaries and who, irrespective of their
legal status, retain some or all of their own social,
economic, cultural and political institutions.
2. Self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be
regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the
groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply.
3. The use of the term peoples in this Convention shall
not be construed as having any implications as regards
the rights which may attach to the term under
international law [emphases added].
From these provisions of the 1957 and 1989 Conventions, it
is evident that both use terms, such as ‘tribe’ and
‘indigenous
peoples’
or
‘indigenous
populations’,
interchangeably to distinguish them from the ‘national
communities’ of former colonies. Such an ethnocentric
distinction makes sense in the context of those colonies that
experienced European settler colonialism and continue to
have significant settler populations. But given the breadth of
the definition, it appears that the distinction is equally
applied to those former colonies, such as Bharat, where the
European settler population is not considerable. As a
consequence of this, the distinction between ‘dominant
national communities’ and ‘indigenous/tribal peoples’ when
applied to countries like Bharat introduces internal
coloniality within the native population by treating ‘minority
tribal communities’ as being racially and culturally distinct
from ‘majority national communities’, which has no basis in
the native worldview. In other words, a permanent fault line
or division is created through an international instrument
that manufactures an artificial power hierarchy between
‘national communities’ and indigenous populations or tribes
while treating majority national communities as colonisers
and less indigenous than the tribes. Putting such national
communities in the same category as the European
coloniser is as mischievous as it can get because it makes
them the successors of the legacy of European colonialism
and treats them as pre-European colonisers of indigenous
lands. The origin of this categorisation can be traced to the
creation of a ‘tribal’ identity by the European coloniser in
colonised societies for the purpose of creating ethnic
fissures that could simultaneously facilitate co-option of the
influential cultural elites, and conversion of ‘indigenous
tribal groups’ through evangelical activity. This factum of
creation of ‘tribe’ as a colonial category for colonised
peoples has been dealt with in the second section of the
book in the context of Bharat. What this proves is that the
framework of the ILO Conventions strikes a distinction
between ‘national communities’ and ‘tribes’ because they
are based on the colonial creation called ‘tribe’.
This colonial classification was subsequently taken
forward by subaltern studies, which emanates from
postcolonial thought since postcolonialism views indigenous
history through Eurocentric lens and assumes that the
‘majority national community’ exhibited the same
behavioural pattern as that of the European coloniser.25
Further, as opposed to recognising the right of former
colonies to craft their own definitions of indigenous peoples
and what constitutes indigeneity, the internationalisation of
the issue through international legal instruments effectively
allows the West to interfere with the social dynamics and
history of former colonies, thereby diluting their sovereignty
as well as their agency over their cultural experience. This
proves my earlier point on international law being an
instrumentality of coloniality. Further, the focus of both ILO
definitions is on ‘identity’ as opposed to ‘consciousness’,
wherein the former focusses on who are ‘indigenous
peoples’ as opposed to also asking what constitutes or
makes up ‘indigeneity’.
In this regard, the other important legal literature that
merits examination is the ‘Study on the Problem of
Discrimination
against
Indigenous
Populations’
commissioned by the United Nations in 1972. The Study was
authored by the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission
on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,
Jose R. Martinez Cobo,26 and came to be known as the
Martinez Cobo Study. This exercise, which was completed in
1987, is considered one of the most comprehensive works
on the subject. A working definition of who and what
constitutes ‘indigenous’ was provided in it, which is as
follows:
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those
which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion
and pre-colonial societies that developed on their
territories, consider themselves distinct from other
sectors of the societies now prevailing on those
territories, or parts of them. They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to
preserve, develop and transmit to future generations
their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as
the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in
accordance with their own cultural patterns, social
institutions and legal system.
This historical continuity may consist of the
continuation, for an extended period reaching into the
present of one or more of the following factors:
a. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of
them;
b. Common ancestry with the original occupants of
these lands;
c. Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such
as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of
an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood,
lifestyle, etc.);
d. Language (whether used as the only language, as
mother-tongue,
as
the
habitual
means
of
communication at home or in the family, or as the main,
preferred, habitual, general or normal language);
e. Residence on certain parts of the country, or in
certain regions of the world;
f. Other relevant factors.
On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who
belongs to these indigenous populations through selfidentification as indigenous (group consciousness) and
is recognised and accepted by these populations as one
of its members (acceptance by the group).
This preserves for these communities the sovereign
right and power to decide who belongs to them, without
external interference [emphases added].
As is evident, this working definition contains quite a few
agreeable aspects since it combines elements of who are
indigenous peoples and what makes them indigenous, which
goes beyond ethnic considerations. That said, this definition
too is better applicable to those countries with significant
European settler populations, such as the Americas, New
Zealand and Australia, since it is based on the premise that
such indigenous groups are in a position of relative nondominance. Application of this definition to countries like
Bharat with negligible European settler population results in
the same pitfalls as the ILO definitions. Effectively, it passes
on the European coloniser’s guilt as a legacy to the native
‘dominant’/‘majority national communities’ of Bharat.
Further, in Bharat, this distinction based on dominant/
‘majority’ national groups and marginalised/‘minority’
indigenous/tribal groups has only worked to the detriment of
the native society since ‘tribal’ groups have been
incongruously arrayed alongside ‘religious minorities’, and
pitted against the rest of the ‘majority’ population of which
they have been an organic part for millennia. While I will
build more on this point in the second section of the book as
part of my discussion on creation of tribal identities by the
coloniser in Bharat, the working definition of the Martinez
Cobo Study, among other things, has the effect of negating
the precolonial histories of countries like Bharat. Given that
Cobo’s definition was formulated in 1986-1987, that is,
before Quijano’s formulation of coloniality (in 1989), the
application of the decolonial option to Cobo’s definition is
imperative.
Critically,
international
instruments
on
indigenous peoples and their issues continue to build on the
Cartesian subject–object relationship by treating ‘indigenous
peoples’
and
‘dominant
majority
populations’
as
communities that are destined to live in walled gardens for
eternity with the ‘indigenous tribes’ forming the objects of
study.
This silo-based colonial approach to indigeneity has not
changed despite the adoption of the United Nations
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)27
by 144 countries in September 2007, which was voted
against by the United States of America, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand, and abstained from by 11 countries,
namely Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia,
Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Samoa and
Ukraine. The rights enumerated in the declaration
‘constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity
and well-being of the Indigenous Peoples of the world’.28
Ostensibly, the declaration protects both collective rights
and individual rights of indigenous peoples in matters of
self-government, land, education, employment, health and
other areas, which is essentially a Europeanisation of
indigenous
issues
because
the
central
issue
of
mainstreaming the indigenous consciousness remains
untouched. However, the silver lining is that the declaration
does not define indigenous peoples or spell out the
parameters for their identification, giving former colonies
the chance to break from colonial stereotypes and metrics.
In other words, the absence of a universal definition,
although unintentionally decolonial, provides a pluriversal
window to former colonies to address issues of indigeneity.
Then again, the declaration also makes it clear that there
is a significant room for ‘international’ intervention so that
member States are ‘encouraged to comply with and
effectively implement all their obligations as they apply to
indigenous peoples under international instruments’. It says:
‘The rights affirmed in treaties, agreements and other
constructive arrangements between States and indigenous
peoples are, in some situations, matters of international
concern, interest, responsibility and character.’ Clearly,
these instruments act as tools to undermine the sovereignty
of former colonies, with the ‘international’ community or the
West acting as the Big Brother.
Interestingly, none of these instruments address the
thorny subject of evangelical attempts to convert ‘tribal’
populations to Christianity, which ought to have been fairly
obvious given the history of the Americas and other regions.
Ironically, while the ‘dominant’ national majorities are
expected to respect the identities of ‘indigenous peoples’,
there is no international commitment to prevent external
actors, such as missionary groups, from interfering with the
course of indigenous life in the name of ‘educating’ or
‘civilising’ them. This proves that coloniality of international
law itself needs to be revisited before reviewing instruments
that relate to the rights of indigenous peoples. None of this
is to take away from the fact that the declaration does
indeed attempt to legitimise and ensure equal treatment of
indigenous peoples. However, that it limits the scope of its
vision exclusively to the creation of safe spaces for
‘indigenous peoples or the indigenous identity’ (a category
which in itself warrants serious revision), as opposed to
delinking their destinies from coloniality altogether, remains
a fundamental limitation that overshadows incremental
recognition of all other rights.
Having discussed the pith and marrow of the legal position
on indigenous peoples, it becomes important to understand
the colonial and modern nature of ‘development’, which is
one of the most powerful social, cultural and political forces
in the world today that affects indigenous ways of life. This
is especially relevant to former colonies which were
categorised as ‘under-developed’ or ‘developing’ following
decolonisation.29
The
work
of
Colombian-American
anthropologist Arturo Escobar in this regard is particularly
arresting because he highlights the fact that this convenient
categorisation by the West succeeded in creating the
impression that former colonies were always ‘backward’
while the ‘West’ has always been a beacon of reason,
progress and scientific temper.30 The irony of former colonies
becoming ‘recipient countries’ and the colonisers—the
‘developed’ ‘modern’ Western imperialists—becoming
‘donor countries’ is not lost on him. From positions on
respect for nature to the rights of indigenous peoples to
practising their ways of life, everything is affected by
modern conceptions of ‘development’ in former colonies
that aspire to Westernisation instead of identifying their own
goals based on indigenous frameworks.31 Therefore,
‘development’ warrants a brief unpacking to understand its
impact on indigeneity.32
While the 2007 Declaration is said to be the most
comprehensive document on indigenous rights, it in itself
treats ‘development’ as the universal set in which the
indigenous way of life is but a subset, an island, a safe
space carved out, thereby tragically failing to understand
the very concept of indigeneity and address the coloniality
underlying contemporary notions of development. Not only
is development laced with modernity as defined by the
West, the manner in which such development must be
pursued and attained is also dictated by the West ever since
the grant of ‘development aid’ was made contingent on
reshaping ‘independent’ former colonies in the mould of the
West. As a result, the pursuit of such yardsticks of
development has been adopted as the national goal of
several former colonies. All aspects of life—from laws to
‘religion’ to the production of knowledge and education—
have been reoriented towards the achievement of Westernstyle development. Therefore, until ‘development’ is itself
subjected to a decolonial filter, it will single-handedly propel
indigenous peoples towards a Westernised future because it
first and foremost affects a community’s relationship with
nature, which percolates right down to the individual.
Clearly, at the heart of it, the tussle is between colonial
perception of humankind’s centrality to nature on the one
hand and its actual place within nature on the other, which
informs indigeneity, and hence decoloniality.
Coming to decolonial scholarship on ‘indigeneity’, in
contrast to the ILO definitions that are heavily ethnocentric
and are subscribed to by the postcolonial school,
decoloniality focusses on indigenous consciousness owing to
its recognition that the ‘tribal’ identity was invented by the
European coloniser to advance the goals of colonialism.
Decolonial thought takes a multipronged approach to
‘indigeneity’ by distilling the building blocks that constitute
the ‘state of being indigenous’ beyond the superficial plane
of ‘identity’.33 This is also because decolonial thought is
aware of the Latin origins of ‘indigenous’, which is derived
from the Latin term ‘indigenes’, meaning ‘born in the
country’. Such a purely birth-based approach could have the
automatic effect of treating even the settler coloniser’s
progeny as indigenous, which would be absurd from a
consciousness perspective. In any case, assumptions of
ethnic purity to retain the status of being indigenous must
necessarily subscribe to certain ahistorical and perhaps
even unscientific approximations.
Also, if ethnicity or birth were to be accepted as the sole
or primary metrics for indigeneity, it would fail to address
those situations where ethnicity remains the same and the
entire OET framework is altered owing to evangelisation.
Therefore, a strictly birth-based or ethnocentric approach to
indigeneity, which is a consequence of present-day rules for
acquisition of citizenship being retrofitted to a much more
complex construct, misses the entire point of indigeneity.
Since contemporary laws of acquisition of nationality
operate within a legal framework that is colonial, they
cannot and must not be used to understand indigeneity that
challenges the foundations of the system as it exists.
Finally, several decolonised societies, despite not having
converted to the religion of the coloniser, have moved on
from their precolonial pasts because they have embraced
secularised coloniality, namely ‘modernity’. This means that
those who retain their indigenous consciousness by
subscribing to the indigenous way of life (‘indigeneity’) are
dwindling in number while the indigenous ‘identity’ has
become merely an external legal marker. Simply put, the
former is a state or condition of the mind, while the latter is
a legal status. Since one of the objects of decoloniality is to
revive and preserve the former as a response to coloniality,
the term indigeneity, that is, the state of being indigenous
and retaining indigenous consciousness, is preferred to
‘indigenous peoples’.
At this juncture, it also needs to be pointed out that
scholars, such as Mignolo, while recognising that reemergence of indigeneity results in decolonial delinking of
the Western imperialist’s control over lives all over the
world, take the position that decoloniality ‘does not equal
indigenous struggle’ and that it is ‘not an ethnic, national or
religious identification project’.34 In my opinion, the goal of
decoloniality may be to limit the universalist claim of the
modernity/rationality complex of coloniality; however, what
must replace coloniality and what must be the priority of
indigeneity should be determined not by scholars of
decoloniality, but by decolonialised indigenous societies,
even if it takes the shape of an ethnic or religious
identification project based on their respective histories.
What does this translate to in practical application? In the
context of Latin America, scholars of decoloniality take the
position that indigeneity is defined as the state of
indigenous societies as they existed prior to 1492, that is,
before Columbus’ expedition. But non-Latin American
societies, which have experienced pre-European forms of
colonising aggression, such as Middle Eastern colonialism,
have the right to identify their own respective ‘cut-off’
periods to define indigeneity. This is consistent with
decoloniality’s rejection of formulation of abstract
universals, and commitment to contextuality. Therefore,
every society has the right to identify and define coloniality
and decoloniality based on its own unique history and
experience.
The Relational Land Ontology of Indigeneity
Having said the above, the next issue that needs to be
addressed is the relationship between indigeneity and
nature, given the paradigm shift triggered by coloniality’s
approach to nature. From the perspective of the Christian
European coloniser, the forced transaction with indigenous
peoples that took the shape of colonisation was only
incidental to his true objective—the acquisition of territory
for the imposition of his worldview and subjugation through
conversion or elimination of those who stood in the way. The
coloniser had no use for indigenous peoples because they
were impediments to his divine right and duty to establish
his dominion over any non-Christian territory. The only
divine purpose fulfilled by the indigenous peoples was to
present the coloniser with the opportunity to fulfil his
evangelical obligations. In other words, the relationship
between coloniality and nature/land/geography was one of
ownership for the purposes of enjoyment, which is the
product of its dualist undergirding and the specific Christian
OET behind humanism.
In contrast to the proprietorial approach of coloniality,
indigeneity’s attitude to land/nature is based on
‘relationality’.35 The use of relationality here is different from
its use earlier in the context of facilitating intercultural
communication. Here, relationality means seeing humans as
being part of nature and not outside of it. This translates to
obligations towards nature, including ‘reciprocal obligations
between humans and the other-than-human’. Such
relationality not only informs the relationship between
indigenous communities and nature, it also shapes their
epistemologies and faiths as we saw earlier.36 Specific rituals
and traditions are evolved that give primacy to the
geography and elevate the relationship to a sacred status, a
relationship that people of Bharat can relate to. Such an
approach cannot be compared to the clinically proprietorial
and territorial attitude of the coloniser.
Thanks to the territoriality of the coloniser’s approach to
land, the nationalism of the coloniser too is territorial. In
stark contrast, the spiritual character of the relationship
between indigeneity and nature is an emotion that the
coloniser can at best exoticise but can never relate to. I use
the word spiritual not in a bohemian mystical sense but to
refer to the OET embedded therein, which is the product of
the lived experience of millennia, handed down through
generations to preserve the same respect for nature.
Clearly, there is a marked difference in the land ontologies
of the European Christian coloniser and the non-Christian
precolonial non-West. This does not mean that there is no
element of territoriality in the indigenous approach to land;
however, what underpins the territoriality, namely
relationality, forms the substratum of its land ontology.37
Having said that, I realise that this could be a gross
generalisation since the true position is best answered by
each indigenous society or representatives of indigeneity in
former colonies. Therefore, in keeping with decoloniality’s
commitment to pluriversality and subjectivity, and its
justified reticence to universalising provincialism of any
kind, I will undertake a Bharat-specific discussion in the next
section.
It is possible to arrive at the facile and typically
postcolonial conclusion that ultimately both coloniality and
indigeneity are about establishing ownership over land,
resources and labour, but this would be drawing a false
symmetry, apart from missing the point entirely. Coloniality
as a phenomenon has opened up issues that include but
extend beyond dominion over geography. It raises questions
of agency to practise a way of life that is associated with a
geography owing to the relational dynamic between the
indigenous worldview and the geography it is contained in.
This also explains why indigenous epistemology sees its
people as custodians of a sacred geography, whereas
European nationalism perceives territory as an external
object of possession and ownership. Therefore, at the heart
of the transformation called for by decoloniality is the reinscription of relationality into the indigenous approach to
nature in order for indigeneity to take root, which is bound
to have a direct bearing on all other aspects of life and
civilisation. This would begin as well as complete the
process of delinking the indigenous consciousness from
coloniality and a colonial universe.
From the discussion undertaken in this section, a few
questions may arise. For instance, how practical is the
decolonial option? After all, if coloniality is omnipresent by
design and has resulted in a globalised and heavily
integrated world that places the West (the Global North) at
the top and the rest at the bottom as the Global South, how
does decoloniality hope to upset the established global
order? Also, what is decoloniality’s vision of the future,
assuming it has the wherewithal to achieve its goals? First,
in order to answer these questions, it may help to
understand that 500 years is nothing from the standpoint of
human history and therefore, there is no reason to assume
that the history of the last five centuries shall remain the
history even for the next hundred years. After all, the West
is not what it was even half a century ago. Second, while
different commentators and authorities on the subject of
decoloniality may have differing views, from what I have
understood, it seems to me that the goal is to regain the
space for indigeneities to breathe, which allows them to
compete in the supposedly free market of ideas by letting
them tell their own stories in their own languages.
Some believe the world has changed forever by virtue of
European colonialism and there is no going back to
precolonial ways of life, which makes indigenous societies
eternal victims. However, ever since the offshoots of
coloniality, namely globalisation and unconscientious
mercantilism, have begun to expose the utterly destructive
impact of coloniality on nature placing the world in a crisis,
the cautious hope is that the world will begin its quest for
alternatives that respect nature as being central to
civilisation as opposed to relegating it to the category of a
mere resource. This endeavour could possibly bring the
world to the doorstep of indigenous knowledge systems,
which could, in turn, lead to the resurgence of a relational
association with nature, which is perhaps the intended
outcome of decoloniality.
In other words, it is this window of global introspection on
the treatment of nature that is capable of enabling the reinscription of indigeneities in their respective spheres of
influence/geographies, thereby exposing the provincial
validity of Europeanism and its false claim of universalism.
The idea is to show that the rest of the world was not living
in the Dark Ages before Pax Europaea or European Peace,
and will certainly not plunge into ignorance and darkness
after the demise of Pax Europaea. Therefore, it is time to
discard the idea that the rest of the world is the Christian
White Man’s burden.
To be clear, while decoloniality may not result in the
extinction of Europeanism, it may certainly limit
Europeanism to the borders of its origin, and allow
indigeneities to re-exist, albeit in a hybrid form. This could
have implications for Europeanism even within Europe in the
sense that it may introspect and revisit its pre-Christian
past, which could re-establish the centrality of nature in the
mothership of Christian Cartesian dualism. But again, I am
getting ahead of myself. At this point, if in the foreseeable
future, indigeneities can rid themselves of their colonial
strings and find respectability and acceptance in their own
geographies, it would be a good start by all accounts.
With these lessons drawn from the literature on coloniality
and the nature of decolonial thought, the next section will
examine the impact of coloniality on Bharat’s indigenous
consciousness.
Section II
CIVILISATION
6
Bharat, Coloniality and Colonial
Consciousness
Sir Thomas stood before the Mogul
Sir Thomas Roe began his diplomatic career in India as an ambassador to the
court of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. In his four years of duty (1614–1618)
there, he furthered the fortunes of the English East India Company. Roe’s
primary role was to obtain protection for the East India Company’s factory at
Surat.
In the previous section, I presented a summary of my
understanding of coloniality and decoloniality in order to
evaluate their relevance for and applicability to Bharat from
the perspective of reclaiming its indigenous consciousness.
To this end, I have formulated the following Bharat-specific
questions:
1. In view of the literature on European colonialism and
coloniality, and Bharat’s long tryst with it, is it possible
to assume that the European coloniser’s intentions and
conduct towards Bharat were any different from his
treatment of other colonised societies, or that Bharat’s
consciousness remained unaffected by it?
2. If Bharat’s consciousness was indeed affected by
coloniality, has it actively impeded Bharat from candidly
acknowledging and discussing a pre-European form of
coloniality it has been subjected to, which continues to
affect its consciousness?
3. If Bharat’s indigenous consciousness is weighed down
by both European and pre-European colonialities, is
decoloniality the better framework for Bharat in order to
reclaim its indigenous consciousness/indigeneity as
opposed to the postcolonial critique?
4. If yes, and if the decolonial framework were to be
applied to Bharat, what is its conception of itself? Is it a
civilisation or a nation or a synthetic product of
colonisation? Also, what constitutes Bharat’s indigeneity
and how does one etch its contours?
5. Applying the decolonial framework specifically to
Bharat’s political institutions as viewed through the
prism of the Constitution, is the Constitution informed
by Bharat’s indigeneity? Does the history of the
movement towards constitutionalism bear this out?
6. If the history of the Constitution is consistent with
Bharat’s indigeneity, what explains the current view
among a vast cross-section of people that Bharat’s
Constitution is at loggerheads with its indigeneity?
7. Alternatively, if Bharat’s Constitution is a product of
coloniality, what would a decolonial revisitation of the
document look like?
Out of these issues, the first four fall within the realm of
experts trained in the relevant fields of humanities.
Therefore, I will address them briefly in this section, as a
learner, based on the literature. Also, given the nature of
the said issues and their overlap, it may not be possible or
even desirable to address them in a linear fashion, and so a
fair degree of non-linearity must be expected. As for the last
three issues, which I am in some position to address given
my training as a lawyer and my first-hand application of
constitutional law and history in matters of civilisational
significance, I will address them in this section and the next.
These sections span the founding of the English East India
Company in 1600 until 1919, when the League of Nations
was established and the first British-made Constitution for
Bharat was passed, namely the Government of India Act of
1919. The period subsequent to that, including the adoption
of independent Bharat’s Constitution on 26 January 1950
and the first amendment to the Constitution in 1951, shall
be addressed in the sequel to this book. Therefore, whether
independent Bharat’s Constitution suffers from coloniality,
and if so, to what degree, will be addressed in the sequel,
the foundation for which will be laid in this section and the
next.
In the previous section, we saw that decolonial literature
traces the origins of European colonialism to the fifteenth
century, specifically to 1492, when the Age of Discovery
began with Christopher Columbus’ expedition in search of
‘India’, which instead, took him to the Americas, resulting in
their colonisation. Therefore, the ‘discovery’ of Bharat in
1492 was delayed, albeit only for a short period, since Vasco
da Gama’s arrival by the end of the same century marked
the advent of the Portuguese, followed by others including
the Dutch, the British and the French. While trade was the
ostensible purpose of Christian European arrival in Bharat,
the Inter Caetera of 1493 issued by Pope Alexander VI
authorising Spain and Portugal to colonise, convert and
enslave indigenous peoples is proof enough of the
European’s
colonising
and
evangelising
objectives
regardless of his ‘nationality’.
If the Inter Caetera is treated as proof of intent with Papal
benediction or even inspiration, the experience of colonised
societies with colonialism and coloniality bears out the
actualisation of that intent. The replacement of the
indigenous worldview with a Christian European one in the
Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia and other parts of
the world is a matter of fact, and not subjective opinion,
notwithstanding the profession of toleration on the part of
the European coloniser. In fact, as discussed earlier, the
Christian character of toleration too has been demonstrated
by scholars. Further, in view of the domination of almost the
entire world by European colonisers for at least five
centuries, European coloniality was globalised, which
explains its omnipresence. To use a pop culture reference,
European coloniality is like the Matrix. One just needs to
become aware of it, after which it is impossible to unsee,
especially in matters of religion, polity, education,
economics and the law.
Given this, and the fact that Bharat was the original
destination of Columbus’ expedition, what explains the
prevalent superficial assumption in Bharat that the
European coloniser’s actions were driven solely by racism
and his lust for power and wealth? What explains this
tendency to ‘secularise’ the manifestly unsecular intent and
conduct of the Christian coloniser? It could be attributed to
ingrained coloniality, which results in an insular approach to
the history of European colonisation of Bharat, instead of
seeing it as part of the colonisation of the New World by the
Christian coloniser.
What is also ironic is that, despite the experience of other
indigenous societies whose precolonial religious identities
have been either annihilated or reduced to a minority by the
coloniser, in Bharat, the failure of the very same coloniser to
significantly convert the indigenous population to his faith is
interpreted as proof of his secular and purely mercantile
intent. As opposed to crediting the inherent strength of the
indigenous OET for resisting the coloniser’s evangelising
overtures, the benefit of benevolence or tolerance is
extended to the coloniser, who consciously operated under
a distinct sense of anthropological superiority that stemmed
from his religious beliefs. It is this blinkered approach that
gives rise to ill-informed questions, such as ‘is not
colonisation proof of Bharat’s inherent weakness?’ Such an
ahistorical, secularised and self-defeating approach to the
intent and conduct of the Christian coloniser is clear proof of
entrenched
coloniality
in
contemporary
Bharat’s
consciousness. As a consequence, Bharat’s analysis of
colonialism revolves around race and economics, while the
Christian OET of the coloniser gets a free pass even in the
most withering analysis of his rule of close to 200 years.
Ironically, indigenous OET systems are scrutinised more
than the coloniser’s OET thanks to this coloniality.
It is precisely for this reason that the European coloniser’s
track record in the rest of the world, which screams religious
and hence racial supremacism, ought to be understood
better even if one’s interest is limited to Bharat. How else
can one hope to make sense of a global phenomenon?
Unfortunately, barring the work of a handful of scholars, this
aspect has not received the kind of rigorous and serious
scrutiny in Bharat that it should have. The result being that
the deep and innate strength of Bharat’s consciousness—
which has resisted the tsunami of coloniality with a greater
degree of success than most other indigenous societies
whose cultures, civilisations, and consciousness were nearly
wiped out—is never recognised and acknowledged. This is
not to deny that European coloniality did indeed make deep
inroads even in Bharat, which is evident from the latter’s
present tendency to secularise facts. This tendency has put
to sleep a society that is in dire need of awareness of its
own strength and consciousness to deal with the continued
presence of coloniality of more than one kind.
To cut a long story short, it is my considered position that
in the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, the
most plausible and reasonable inference that may be drawn
based on the global experience with European coloniality is
that Bharat too was approached with the same colonial lens,
and one need not even delve into Bharat-specific literature
to make this point. That said, Bharat-specific literature
needs to be delved into to understand the local/contextual
manifestations of coloniality and its continuing effects. The
object of this exercise is to prove the core premise of
decolonial thought, which distinguishes it from postcolonial
critique, that is, that coloniality did not cease to exist with
the decolonisation of Bharat but has successfully continued
in ‘independent’ Bharat, having been secularised,
modernised and internalised—either due to complete
ignorance or deliberate negation of history.
The internalisation of European coloniality in Bharat is
evident from the constant refrain of its elites that had it not
been for the British—who had apparently stitched together a
single country out of disparate entities with nothing in
common—Bharat would not have been a single political unit
or a ‘nation’; and that Bharat would have lacked
infrastructure, such as trains, post, telegraph and the like,
but for ‘investment’ by the coloniser in Bharat. In short, the
very idea of Bharat, its civilisational unity, its relationship
with time and its subjectivity have been tied to the advent
of the coloniser, independent of whom it is assumed that
Bharat had no consciousness of its own. This is glaring
evidence of an abysmal understanding of the global history
and nature of colonialism.
The clearest proof, of course, is the fact that the
‘independent’ Indian State tests its standing on the global
stage not on its ability to reclaim its consciousness and live
by its own values, but on the basis of its position in the
‘global order’ (read the West) as a ‘civilised nation’. There
does not appear to be a conscious attempt on the part of
the Indian State to break free from the universalised fictions
and illusions created by coloniality. Therefore, a decolonial
approach to rid Bharat of coloniality is imperative.
This is not possible without challenging the predominance
of postcolonialism in Bharat given its role in perpetuating
coloniality. To this end, it is important to understand the
specific manifestations of coloniality in Bharat, especially
the following, which have altered its consciousness in the
most fundamental of ways:
1. The impact of the Christian European coloniser’s
conceptions of ‘religion’ on Indic OET systems and the
attendant alienation of nature;
2. The application of the coloniser’s racial lens to
Bharat’s societal structures, which gave rise to what we
understand today as ‘caste’ and ‘tribe’;
3. The introduction of the coloniser’s education system
at the expense of indigenous knowledge production and
education systems;
4. The imposition of the Westphalian nation-state model
on a diverse civilisational society; and
5. The impact of the coloniser’s notion of ‘development’.
Surprisingly, each of these is abundantly supported by the
literature except that the underlying cause, namely
coloniality, which is common, has not been paid attention
to.
Before I am misunderstood and labelled a revisionist, let
me clarify that I do not mean that prior to the advent of the
European coloniser there were no stratifications or
hierarchies in Bharatiya society. However, it is certainly my
case, based on the literature on coloniality and its impact on
societal structures of other colonised societies, that the
manner in which religion, caste and tribe are understood in
contemporary Bharat bears a distinct colonial stamp. The
influence of both secularised and non-secularised Protestant
Reformation-informed Christian OET is inescapable.
Therefore, if at all we wish to judge Bharat’s contemporary
social structures or their past, a decolonial approach would
require that they be understood minus the judgement and
sanctimony induced by Reformed and Enlightened European
coloniality. By ‘understood’, I do not mean glorified, I simply
mean made sense of for what they were before the
coloniser’s evangelising and civilising influence afflicted
them and their characterisation.
I am supported in these views by the stellar work of
several scholars, such as Dr. S.N. Balagangadhara, Dr. Jakob
De Roover and Nicholas B. Dirks. This is not a call to
authority, instead it is my position that the work of these
scholars is consistent with the central theme of the
decolonial school, that is, the existence of coloniality is a
fact. The corollary being that any work that fails to or
deliberately ignores the impact of coloniality on Indic
societal structures and dynamics perpetuates coloniality. To
explain this position in greater detail, as in the first section, I
will use this opportunity to discuss material that, in my
opinion, deserves wider dissemination and whose relevance
alongside, if not within, the framework of decoloniality is
evident to me.
In this regard, the works of Dr. Balagangadhara and Dr. De
Roover are particularly important since they are closer to
the decolonial school owing to their recognition of the
existence of ‘colonial consciousness’, which is similar to
Quijano’s recognition of coloniality.1 Based on what I have
read thus far, I was, in fact, surprised at the lack of a direct
and express handshake between the scholarship on
decoloniality, which focusses predominantly on the
Americas, and the scholarship on colonial consciousness,
whose primary focus is Bharat. Therefore, before I proceed
to examine the literature on the impact of coloniality on
religion, caste, tribe and political thought in the context of
Bharat, it is important to understand the nature of ‘colonial
consciousness’ as formulated by Balagangadhara and De
Roover, with particular attention to Bharat.
Colonial Consciousness, Postcolonialism and the
Native’s Options
Balagandhara and De Roover highlight that apart from being
malleable and fluid over time labels, such as ‘the Left’ and
‘the Right’, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, are located within
the same worldview, namely the colonial worldview. This,
according to them, is a product of ‘colonial consciousness’,
which they believe has not been understood well enough in
Bharat since the postcolonial school in the country has only
focussed on the external manifestations of colonialism and
its effects. As stated earlier, this puts the position of both
scholars in the neighbourhood of the decolonial school.
Further, they believe, as do decolonial scholars, that
colonial consciousness is not a thing of the past, given its
continued presence in contemporary structures and
attitudes. In its erstwhile form as colonialism and in its
current
form
as
Western
imperialism,
colonial
consciousness, according to both scholars, is aimed at
establishing and projecting the civilisational superiority of
the West. They too agree that colonial consciousness takes
away from a colonised people their agency over their
cultural experiences and permits them to describe such
experiences only using the framework and lexicon
prescribed by the coloniser. Such consciousness creates a
set of attitudes and feelings that serve to preserve colonial
legacy in indigenous societies including ‘the feeling of
shame about their own culture, the conviction that they are
backward, the desire to learn from the coloniser’ and so on,
which are cemented through the application of ‘scientism’.
That is to say that the claimed physiological and religious
superiority of the coloniser are treated as scientific facts to
explain and justify the factum of colonisation and
simultaneously prove the weakness of colonised societies.
Each of these thoughts clearly echoes the decolonial
school’s dissection of coloniality and its impact, which is
deprivation of indigenous subjectivities and universalisation
of Eurocentric subjectivity through imposition. It is this
alienation from one’s own cultural experience that makes
colonialism and colonial consciousness immoral according to
Balagangadhara and De Roover. Both call colonialism an
‘educational project’ in the sense that, akin to education, it
acts as a filter that alters human experience though the
introduction of a particular framework. This is evident from
the coloniser’s belief that he was merely discharging his
moral and binding obligation to ‘educate’ and ‘civilise’ the
native, which flowed from his Christian OET that mandated
that devil-worshipping heathens had to be ‘saved’ from their
‘false religions’ and their own immorality.
Given that Bharat was (and remains) the land of
heathendom in the eyes of the Christian coloniser, it was
axiomatic that false religion abounded and immorality
prospered. This laid the foundations of the colonial
stereotype that the indigenous idol-worshipping Hindu was
‘untrustworthy, immoral, corrupt and cowardly’ and
compared poorly to the ‘unyielding Muslim’ who, though he
rejected the gospel, was closer to the Christian worldview,
being ‘of the book’. These stereotypes continue to find
purchase long after the British have left, proving the
continued existence of colonial consciousness. In other
words, the continuity between the ‘fundamental and
structural descriptions’ of Bharat by the British and the
manner in which ‘independent’ generations have viewed
Bharat’s past and present are evidence of colonial
consciousness being alive and kicking. While this continuity
of thought is laid at the doors of Bharat’s indigeneity by the
postcolonial school, given the latter’s perception of Bharat
as an inherently weak and servile civilisation, according to
Balagangadhara and De Roover, colonial consciousness
must be held responsible for such continuity of thought.
They identify the presence of such continuity in the critical
realm of faith that led to ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Jainism’ being
reshaped and reimagined as rebellions against ‘Brahminical
hegemony’, which re-imagination was evidently inspired by
the anti-clericalism of the Protestant Reformation. Further,
the project of ‘reforming’ native faith systems and practices,
which found enthusiastic native takers during the colonial
period and spawned several ‘reformist’ movements,
continues to find purchase in contemporary Bharat
regardless of political or ideological labels, such as the Left
or the Right.
This is not to contend that but for the impact of
coloniality/colonial consciousness Bharat’s society was
without the need for forward movement. That is an entirely
different line of enquiry altogether which cannot be
embarked upon until there is a decolonialised understanding
of precolonial Bharat’s indigenous culture and society. The
point being advanced is that the framework of our
discussions,
conversations
and
debates,
and
its
undergirding are predominantly colonial and until that lens
is replaced with the indigenous lens, there is no scope for an
honest discussion on the need for ‘reform’.
In this regard, Balagangadhara and De Roover are of the
view that replacement of colonial consciousness with
native/Indic consciousness cannot translate to going back to
the precolonial ways of life since colonialism may have
changed the universe of the colonised forever. What, then,
is the purpose of identification of colonial consciousness?
According to them, acknowledgement of moral responsibility
is the first step, by both the coloniser and the colonised for
their
respective
roles
in
perpetuating
colonial
consciousness. The erstwhile coloniser and his successor,
the Western imperialist, must take responsibility for actively
inserting colonial consciousness into colonised societies
while the colonised must take responsibility for advancing
the same even after decolonisation. Simply put, the
treatment of the European experience and view of the Indic
society as ‘fact’ is a textbook case of the colonised being
complicit in advancing and nurturing colonial consciousness
because it feeds off of the unquestioning acceptance of the
Western worldview. This position is similar to the one taken
by Mignolo and Walsh as seen in the last section.
Second, from the point of view of relevance, they take the
position that colonised societies, such as Bharat, must take
cognisance of the Protestant Christian OET behind the
emergence of concepts, such as secularism, which
significantly inform their criticism of their own culture and
societal structures.2 The ignorance of formerly colonised
societies of the specific religious and cultural backdrop that
gave birth to the so-called ‘modern’ ideas, such as
‘secularism’, makes them culpable for perpetuating colonial
consciousness.
Third, awareness of coloniality or colonial consciousness
will awaken formerly colonised societies to the ‘hybridity’
that defines their existence and their tendency to look at
their own cultures as mere variants of the Western
civilisation. This highlights another critical point of departure
between the decolonial and the postcolonial schools—
decolonial thought refuses to celebrate this hybridity
because it relegates the formerly colonised to the eternal
status of the ‘other’, of the ‘Occident’, which forms the basis
of Orientalism. On the other hand, postcolonial thought sees
value in and celebrates hybridity as a form of ‘cultural
resistance’ to the West since it supposedly subverts Western
civilisation through imitation and therefore, ‘contaminates’
what belongs to the West. But Balagangadhara and De
Roover are of the view that hybridity and deliberate
contamination of Western thought, even if employed as
strategies of resistance, reduce the formerly colonised to
the status of ‘immoral’ creatures because their ‘moral
cowardice’ is writ large in the forgery and mimicry they
employ while challenging Western thought.
In any case, to hope to subvert Western thought by
operating within its framework is to fail to recognise that it
only serves to further and legitimise the framework as a
whole along with its claims of universal validity. The net
result is the same—while the coloniser’s coloniality painted
the native as fundamentally untrustworthy due to the
immorality ingrained in his ‘false’ religion, postcolonial
thought’s endorsement of hybridity and mimicry as tools of
subversion internalises this immorality and doublespeak,
thereby validating the untrustworthiness of the native.
Therefore, according to postcolonial thought, there is only
one way to live, one worldview, one ‘option’—the colonial
option. As a consequence, postcolonialism becomes the
unpaid, or perhaps the paid, champion of coloniality/colonial
consciousness. Even if its original intent was the subversion
of Western hegemony, its unintended consequences, at
least in the case of Bharat, are: the reinforcement,
entrenchment and secularisation of colonialism (whose
origins are not secular), the alienation of the native’s own
cultural experience, the stifling and suppression of
indigenous consciousness, and its replacement with selfloathing.
Middle Eastern Coloniality, Postcolonial Thought and
Marxism
There is yet another aspect of the postcolonial approach
that needs to be dealt with so that the choice between the
decolonial and the postcolonial schools becomes obvious.
The postcolonial school, while on the one hand challenging
European colonialism and the latter’s monopoly over truth
and subjectivity, takes a curiously inconsistent position with
respect to the colonisation of Bharat by imperialists
professing Islam—‘Middle Eastern colonialism’—which had a
similar integral and indispensable ethno-religious sense of
superiority as European coloniality.3 Since quite a few of the
colonisers professing Islam arrived from Central Asia, the
use of Middle Eastern colonialism may be deemed
geographically inaccurate. But I stand by the use of the
term because the identity and aims of colonialism are
defined by the geographical locus of the consciousness from
which it draws its inspiration and to which it owes its
allegiance. Therefore, the reference to the ‘Middle East’ is to
a certain form of consciousness that inspired the colonisers
regardless of their ethnicity or geographical origins.4 In other
words, just as ‘the West’ is more a state of mind and not a
mere geography, ‘the Middle East’ too is a state of mind.
The dichotomous approach of postcolonial thought to
European colonialism and Middle Eastern colonialism may
be attributable to the influence of its Palestinian connection,
or the fact that Middle Eastern consciousness and Indic
consciousness are lumped together under the category of
the Oriental and are seen as equal victims of European
colonialism. In that sense, Orientalism has had the effect of
pixelating from public scrutiny the motivations, conduct and
impact of Middle Eastern colonialism on the Indic civilisation
and its consciousness. It also needs to be said that the
attempt to give the impression that Middle Eastern
consciousness is native to the Indic civilisational fabric is
dishonest and without basis in history. However, that
discussion, which requires a deeper examination by experts,
is beyond the scope of this book.
For the purposes of the current discussion, what is
certainly relevant and sufficient is the recognition that the
postcolonial school, while rejecting the tall claims of
European colonialism, actively obstructs any honest analysis
of Middle Eastern colonialism and its coloniality, thereby
allowing it to thrive in Bharat.5 Given the manifest and
significant similarities in the OET frameworks between
European and Middle Eastern colonialities, at the very least,
postcolonial thought ought to have challenged the latter’s
untenable claim of being the final repository of the truth in
the same manner and to the same degree as its challenge
to the former’s claim of universal validity. After all, both
forms of colonialities are significantly inspired by their
respective OETs, which enjoin them to colonise, enslave and
evangelise idol-worshipping indigenous societies.6
Both proceed on the axiomatic presumption that prior to
their advent, colonised societies were consumed by
darkness and ignorance (called ‘Jahilliya’ in the case of
Middle Eastern coloniality), which requires them to spread
the ‘light’ of their respective OETs either through force or
inducement or both.7 In fact, their attitudes towards their
own respective pre-Christian and pre-Muslim histories are
one of contempt and condescension, which are directed at
the rest of the world, after their own respective conversions
to the ‘true faiths’. As a corollary, both believe in the
concept of ‘the true faith’ and heathendom, which ‘others’
and dehumanises the rest of the world at the outset. Both
view the lands of the infidel or the heathen, as the case may
be, as objects of conquest, an attitude that persists even
after settling in conquered lands since both owe their
allegiances to OETs that have their origins outside of the
conquered lands.
Further, their attitude towards nature is similar, which
makes it impossible for them to relate to the veneration of
nature and codification of knowledge through tradition by
indigenous societies, such as Bharat. In so far as Bharat is
concerned, both forms of colonialities are non-indigenous
since the OETs they are inspired by are not only outside the
civilisational weave of Bharat but are also positively at
loggerheads with Indic OET systems. In a nutshell, Bharat
and its indigenous values represent nothing more than a
territory and people to be conquered, converted or
annihilated by either of the colonialities until one of them
attains a position of relative strength and supremacy over
the other. The common adversary is, of course, the
indigenous worldview, which must be annihilated at any
cost by any means necessary and by colluding with any ally
available. This explains the cosy relationship of both forms
of coloniality with Marxism in Bharat, which I will come to
shortly.
In view of this, since Bharat as a civilisation has been at
the receiving end of both forms of colonialism and
coloniality, unlike the Americas, it need not and cannot
afford to limit the scope of its enquiry only to European
colonialism. If anything, the partition of Bharat in 1947 on
religious/civilisational lines8 and the continuing tensions
within Bharat, such as in Kashmir, Bengal, Kerala and other
parts of the country, warrant the examination of Middle
Eastern coloniality from a decolonial perspective just as
much as European coloniality. Therefore, Bharat’s version of
coloniality, and hence decoloniality, must encompass both
forms of colonialism and colonialities.
This position is justified in my view since contemporary
decolonial scholarship concerns itself predominantly with
the impact of European settler colonialism, and Bharat has
experienced Middle Eastern settler colonialism longer than it
has experienced the European variant. Critically, the living
embodiments of Middle Eastern coloniality, regardless of the
faith they subscribe to, presently thrive within Bharat’s
boundaries as well as in its immediate neighbourhood,
which were carved out of its civilisational geography
through force. In other words, while the former colonies to
the west of the Atlantic associate settler coloniality primarily
with Europe, from the perspective of Bharat, Europeanism is
perhaps, at best, a much more sophisticated and systematic
version of Middle Eastern coloniality.
I consciously use the words ‘sophisticated’ and
‘systematic’,
since
Middle
Eastern
colonialism’s
predominant use of force inspired a similar response, which
made it possible for Bharat’s indigeneity to offer fierce
resistance and survive where other cultures and civilisations
were wiped out for eternity. The expression of contempt and
the intention to annihilate the other was worn on the sleeve
by Middle Eastern coloniality, and therefore, the other
(Bharat’s indigeneity) was acutely aware of the need to
defend itself. On the contrary, European coloniality’s use of
institutional mechanisms to co-opt the indigenous society
and project Europeanism as the aspirational goal, lulled the
indigenous consciousness into a false sense of comfort that
coexistence was possible. The indigenous society seemed to
have bought into the stated policy of ‘toleration’ of the
European coloniser whose end goal it was oblivious to. And
yet, the postcolonial school actively obstructs scrutiny of
either coloniality, forget calling them out, despite the fact
that both forms of colonialities are alive and kicking within
contemporary Bharat at the expense of the indigenous
consciousness.
Further, notwithstanding its self-image and professions of
challenging coloniality’s monopoly over time and
subjectivity, the fact remains that postcolonial thought’s
characterisation of who or what constitutes ‘subaltern’ in
Bharat itself is loaded with coloniality since it is informed by
colonial assumptions of the native society and its societal
structures, specifically the ‘caste system’. In addition to this,
at least insofar as Bharat is concerned, the postcolonial and
the Marxist schools have forged a collaborative partnership,
in the sense that both advance European and Middle
Eastern colonialities in their own ways by creating divisions
within the indigenous consciousness or by digesting it,
‘subalternism’ being a case in point.
This may not be surprising given Marx’s own Eurocentrism
and avowed belief that British colonialism was good for
Bharat.9 Marx believed that England had to fulfil ‘a double
mission in India’, namely the annihilation of the old Asiatic
society, and the laying of the material foundations of
Western society in Asia.10 These were his views despite his
own knowledge of the selfish nature of British colonisation
of Bharat, best captured by his statement that ‘whatever
may have been the crimes of England she was the
unconscious tool of history in bringing about that
revolution’, that is, in laying the foundations for ‘the
material basis of the new world’. The entrenchment of the
Marxist view of colonialism in Bharat is illustratively
reflected by the fact that contemporary colonialised elites in
Bharat share Marx’s view that European colonialism was
good for Bharat since it resulted in ‘development’,
evidenced by the introduction of the railway system. The
underlying assumption that is advanced in citing this
example is that, according to the Marxist school, had it not
been for British colonialism, the concept of scientific
temper, progress and ‘development’ were and would have
remained unknown to Bharat.11 In that sense, Marxism
shares the Eurocentric belief that science is the monopoly of
the West, and ‘rationality’, although universal, owes its
origins to Europe.
Further, Marxism’s attitudes to European colonialism and
Middle Eastern colonialism in the context of Bharat have
given rise to creatures, such as Christian Marxism12 and
Islamic Marxism,13 wherein Marxism serves as a convenient
vehicle to further European and Middle Eastern colonialities.
While Marxism masquerades as an independent ideology
elsewhere, in Bharat it has effectively acted as the perfect
foil for colonising mindsets whose attitudes towards
indigenous consciousness have been one of contempt and
condescension, neither of which allows for peaceful
coexistence.
The larger point being made is that given the ethically and
morally suspect alliance between the postcolonial and
Marxist schools in Bharat and their willingness to act as
conduits to two forms of colonialities that have no love lost
for Bharat’s indigenous consciousness, neither school
presents itself as the better option for Bharat in its quest for
reclamation of its indigeneity. Even in the world of
scholarship those, such as Sitaram Goel, Ram Swarup,
Dharampal, Dr. Koenraad Elst, Dr. Balagangadhara and Dr.
De Roover, whether ‘indigenous’ or otherwise, who have
attempted to rigorously examine the history of both Middle
Eastern and European colonisations of Bharat, have been
branded ‘extremist’ or ‘far right’ by both the postcolonial
and Marxist schools. Sadly, these scholars have received a
similar treatment even by those who, although claim to root
for indigenous consciousness, operate under the mistaken
belief that such consciousness can regain its rightful place
without being vocal about its legitimate expectations or its
opposition to both forms of colonialities.
In the process, both the postcolonial and Marxist schools
have arrogated to themselves the status of self-appointed
guardians of ‘India Studies’, now ‘South Asia Studies’, which
gives them monopoly over Bharat’s subjectivity, history and
therefore, its future. This is one of the reasons for my
conscious decision to place Bharat-specific literature on
colonial consciousness alongside global literature on
decoloniality to demonstrate that while the latter is
celebrated in the context of the Americas, the former is
relentlessly maligned despite seeking to achieve a similar
goal as decoloniality—to stand up for Indic indigenous
consciousness which is surrounded by an ocean of
proselytising and expansionist colonialities. Clearly, even if
postcolonial and Marxist schools have advanced the cause
of indigeneities outside Bharat, the principle of harm
suggests that both schools have harmed Bharat’s
indigenous consciousness more than empowering it.
It is for the above-mentioned reasons that the decolonial
school merits serious consideration.14 The decolonial option
gives the indigenous consciousness a voice it sorely needs
to speak out against both forms of continuing colonialities.15
Decoloniality, to my mind, serves as a better lens because it
clips the universalising tendency of both by awakening
people to the presence of such colonialities and enables
movement towards their own cultural experience. Whether
this movement towards indigenous consciousness ultimately
translates to retention of colonial consciousness or
embracing of indigeneity or formulation of a decolonial yet
hybrid framework that is different from the hybridity
celebrated by postcolonial thought, remains a matter of
analysis by domain experts. After all, such choices are
significantly
contingent
on
the
‘practicality’
and
‘pragmatism’ of replacement of colonial consciousness with
indigenous consciousness.
From the perspective of ascertaining a ‘cut-off’ period to
determine Bharat’s indigeneity by expanding Bharat’s
version of colonialities to include both forms, one may
tentatively arrive at the eighth century when the first wave
of recorded Muslim Arab invasions of Bharat began. This is
similar to European colonialism being traced by the
decolonial school to the fifteenth century when the Age of
Discovery began. While the period between the twelfth and
sixteenth centuries is typically associated with a more
consistent and frequent wave of Islamic invasions of Bharat,
the eighth century certainly marked its beginning. Perhaps
scholars trained in history may disagree with me with regard
to the exact time period, but the underlying principle I seek
to advance is similar to the position of decolonial scholars
with respect to indigeneity in the context of Latin America.
To not do so would be to display rank intellectual
inconsistency and dishonesty, thereby proving coloniality, in
this case Middle Eastern coloniality.
In this regard, I place limited reliance on Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar’s views wherein he suggested a continuum of
thought between the Islamic OET-inspired invasions of
Bharat in the eighth century and the ultimate demand for
the creation of Pakistan by the leading lights of the Pakistan
movement, citing the Two Nation Theory. Following are a few
relevant extracts from his book Pakistan or the Partition of
India wherein Dr. Ambedkar charts the Islamic invasion of
Bharat on a timeline beginning from the invasion of Sindh
by Muhammad Bin Qasim in 711 ce (close to 80 years after
the Islamic Prophet’s passing) to the Third Battle of Panipat
between Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Maratha empire in
176116:
These Muslim invasions were not undertaken merely out
of lust for loot or conquest. There was another object
behind them. The expedition against Sind by
Mahommad bin Qasim was of a punitive character and
was undertaken to punish Raja Dahir of Sind who had
refused to make restitution for the seizure of an Arab
ship at Debul, one of the sea port towns of Sind. But,
there is no doubt that striking a blow at the idolatry and
polytheism of Hindus and establishing Islam in India was
also one of the aims of this expedition.
All this was not the result of mere caprice or moral
perversion. On the other hand, what was done was in
accordance with the ruling ideas of the leaders of Islam
in the broadest aspects. These ideas were well
expressed by the Kazi in reply to a question put by
Sultan Ala-ud-Din wanting to know the legal position of
the Hindus under Muslim law. The Kazi said:
‘They are called payers of tribute, and when the
revenue officer demands silver from them they should
without question, and with all humility and respect,
tender gold. If the officer throws dirt in their mouths,
they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to
receive it. . . . The due subordination of the Dhimmi is
exhibited in this humble payment, and by this throwing
of dirt into their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a
duty, and contempt for religion is vain. God holds them
in contempt, for he says, “Keep them in subjection.” To
keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious
duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of
the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded
us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive,
saying, “Convert them to Islam or kill them, and make
them slaves, and spoil their wealth and properly.” No
doctor but the great doctor (Hanifah), to whose school
we belong, has assented to the imposition of jizya on
Hindus; doctors of other schools allow no other
alternative but “Death or Islam.”’
The reason I specifically quote Dr. Ambedkar and place
limited reliance on his views on this subject in the context of
Middle Eastern colonialism is to make the point that Dr.
Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the
Indian Constitution, was of the view that the Two Nation
Theory was a reality that the indigenous society of Bharat
must accept instead of squeamishly denying. Here are his
views after his summary of the history of Muslim invasions
of Bharat17:
How far is it open to the Hindus to say that Northern
India is part of Aryavarta? How far is it open to the
Hindus to say because once it belonged to them,
therefore, it must remain for ever an integral part of
India? Those who oppose separation and hold to the
‘historic sentiment’ arising out of an ancient fact that
Northern India including Afghanistan was once part of
India and that the people of that area were either
Buddhist or Hindus, must be asked whether the events
of these 762 years of incessant Muslim invasions, the
object with which they were launched and the methods
adopted by these invaders to give effect to their object,
are to be treated as though they were matters of no
account?
Apart from other consequences which have flowed
from them these invasions have, in my opinion, so
profoundly altered the culture and character of the
northern areas, which it is now proposed to be included
in a Pakistan, that there is not only no unity between
that area and the rest of India but that there is as a
matter of fact a real antipathy between the two.
The first consequence of these invasions was the
breaking up of the unity of Northern India with the rest
of India. After his conquest of Northern India,
Muhammad of Ghazni detached it from India and ruled it
from Ghazni. When Mahommed Ghori came in the field
as a conqueror, he again attached it to India and ruled it
from Lahore and then from Delhi. Hakim, the brother of
Akbar, detached Kabul and Kandahar from Northern
India. Akbar again attached it to Northern India. They
were again detached by Nadirshah in 1738 and the
whole of Northern India would have been severed from
India had it not been for the check provided by the rise
of the Sikhs. Northern India, therefore, has been like a
wagon in a train, which can be coupled or uncoupled
according to the circumstances of the moment. If
analogy is wanted, the case of Alsace-Lorraine could be
cited. Alsace-Lorraine was originally part of Germany,
like the rest of Switzerland and the Low Countries. It
continued to be so till 1680, when it was taken by
France and incorporated into French territory. It
belonged to France till 1871, when it was detached by
Germany and made part of her territory. In 1918, it was
again detached from Germany and made part of France.
In 1940, it was detached from France and made part of
Germany.
The methods adopted by the invaders have left
behind them their aftermath. One aftermath is the
bitterness between the Hindus and the Muslims which
they have caused. This bitterness between the two is so
deep-seated that a century of political life has neither
succeeded in assuaging it, nor in making people forget
it. As the invasions were accompanied with destruction
of temples and forced conversions, with spoliation of
property, with slaughter, enslavement and abasement
of men, women and children, what wonder if the
memory of these invasions has ever remained green, as
a source of pride to the Muslims and as a source of
shame to the Hindus? But these things apart, this northwest corner of India has been a theatre in which a stern
drama has been played. Muslim hordes, in wave after
wave, have surged down into this area and from thence
scattered themselves in spray over the rest of India.
These reached the rest of India in thin currents. In time,
they also receded from their farthest limits; while they
lasted, they left a deep deposit of Islamic culture over
the original Aryan culture in this north-west corner of
India which has given it a totally different colour, both in
religious and political outlook.
The Muslim invaders, no doubt, came to India singing
a hymn of hate against the Hindus. But, they did not
merely sing their hymn of hate and go back burning a
few temples on the way. That would have been a
blessing. They were not content with so negative a
result. They did a positive act, namely, to plant the seed
of Islam. The growth of this plant is remarkable. It is not
a summer sapling. It is as great and as strong as an oak.
Its growth is the thickest in Northern India. The
successive invasions have deposited their ‘silt’ more
there than anywhere else, and have served as watering
exercises of devoted gardeners. Its growth is so thick in
Northern India that the remnants of Hindu and Buddhist
culture are just shrubs. Even the Sikh axe could not fell
this oak. Sikhs, no doubt, became the political masters
of Northern India, but they did not gain back Northern
India to that spiritual and cultural unity by which it was
bound to the rest of India before Hsuan Tsang. The Sikhs
coupled it back to India. Still, it remains like AlsaceLorraine politically detachable and spiritually alien so far
as the rest of India is concerned. It is only an
unimaginative person who could fail to take notice of
these facts or insist in the face of them that Pakistan
means breaking up into two what is one whole.
What is the unity the Hindu sees between Pakistan
and Hindustan? If it is geographical unity, then that is no
unity. Geographical unity is unity intended by nature. In
building up a nationality on geographical unity, it must
be remembered that it is a case where Nature proposes
and Man disposes. If it is unity in external things, such
as ways and habits of life, that is no unity. Such unity is
the result of exposure to a common environment. If it is
administrative unity, that again is no unity. The instance
of Burma is in point. Arakan and Tenasserim were
annexed in 1826 by the treaty of Yendabu. Pegu and
Martaban were annexed in 1852. Upper Burma was
annexed in 1886. The administrative unity between
India and Burma was forged in 1826. For over 110 years
that administrative unity continued to exist. In 1937, the
knot that tied the two together was cut asunder and
nobody shed a tear over it. The unity between India and
Burma was not less fundamental. If unity is to be of an
abiding character, it must be founded on a sense of
kinship, in the feeling of being kindred. In short, it must
be spiritual. Judged in the light of these considerations,
the unity between Pakistan and Hindustan is a myth.
Indeed, there is more spiritual unity between Hindustan
and Burma than there is between Pakistan and
Hindustan. And if the Hindus did not object to the
severance of Burma from India, it is difficult to
understand how the Hindus can object to the severance
of an area like Pakistan, which, to repeat, is politically
detachable from, socially hostile and spiritually alien to,
the rest of India.
For the sake of clarity, I repeat that my reliance on Dr.
Ambedkar’s views on the subject is limited to the extent of
demonstrating that the recognition of Middle Eastern
coloniality is imperative in the context of Bharat alongside
European coloniality. I am alive to Dr. Ambedkar’s views on
Indic OETs, in particular on the caste system; however,
given the undeniable existence of European coloniality
during his life and times and his own colonial education, it is
imperative to revisit his views on caste applying the filter of
decoloniality without denying his experience or those of
others. What is important for the present discussion is that
notwithstanding Dr. Ambedkar’s views on native OETs, he
did not lose sight of the fact that Middle Eastern colonialism
had its origins in OETs that lay outside the pale of the Indic
civilisational fabric.
Critically, Dr. Ambedkar was clear that if the remnants of a
culture were to be wiped out from a certain territory, the
culture’s connection with the territory and any claim it may
have over it were weakened. While his observations were in
the context of creation of Pakistan, we would do well to
remember that what constitutes Pakistan today was part of
Bharat once and therefore, if Bharat’s indigeneity does not
realise the imperative of a decolonialising exercise, it is
bound to witness yet another cession of civilisational space,
not just ‘territory’. After all, the creation of Pakistan is not
too far back in time and the event has not put an end to
Middle Eastern colonialism; instead, it has only provided a
firm launch pad for the systematic advancement of Middle
Eastern colonialism through the instrumentality of a State
that was expressly created for the attainment of the said
goal. Venkat Dhulipala’s work in this regard on the founding
and organising principles of Pakistan is an example of stellar
scholarship that only bolsters this position.
In his book Creating a New Medina, Dhulipala
demonstrates, based on research surrounding the ideation
and eventual creation of Pakistan, that it was conceived of
as the ‘New Medina’.18 To support this position, Dhulipala
cites the statements and efforts of proponents of Pakistan,
such as Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, one of the
founding members of Jamia Millia Islamia University and the
founder of the pro-Pakistan political party Jamiat Ulema-eIslam. Dhulipala cites Usmani’s speech delivered in Lahore
in 1946 wherein the latter declared thus:
Just as Medina had provided a base for the eventual
victory of Islam in Arabia, Pakistan would pave the way
for the triumphal return of Islam as the ruling power
over the entire subcontinent. The whole of Hindustan
would thus be turned into Pakistan just as the Prophet
himself had turned all of Arabia into Pakistan.
Usmani went so far as to make a Quranic case for the Two
Nation Theory based on the distinction struck between the
momin (believer) and the kafir (infidel) by the Islamic
Prophet. The sequitur to this distinction, according to
Usmani, was that Indian Muslims constituted a separate
nation and any claim of the composite nationality of Indians
was ‘false and anti-Islamic’. Therefore, a concrete Islamic
theological justification was offered for the creation of
Pakistan as an Islamic State. It is clear that the creation of
Pakistan was envisaged as an end as well as the means to
the end, namely the return of Islam to the Asian
subcontinent.19 Post its creation and the partition of Bharat,
we must ask ourselves whether Middle Eastern colonialism
and coloniality has waxed or waned, especially in view of
the number of political and violent movements and causes
that have surfaced within and surrounding Bharat in the
name of Middle Eastern OET. Given the clear and express
belief of the proponents of Middle Eastern coloniality that
their consciousness is mandated and enjoined by the
scripture they believe in, it is certainly not unreasonable or
baseless to conclude that Indic consciousness has as much
incentive to protect itself from Middle Eastern coloniality as
it does from European coloniality.20 Rather, it has an
existential disincentive to not protect itself from either. This
cannot be branded as fear-mongering given the irrefutable
history of both colonialities in this part of the world. After all,
facts cannot be replaced with wishful secularised thinking.
In view of this, it is possible to justifiably contend that
Bharat’s definitions of coloniality and decoloniality must
include European and Middle Eastern colonialities, in that
order, since the former protects the latter and the latter
rides on the former’s coattails to legitimise itself. The
continuing existential threat posed by both colonialities to
Bharat’s indigeneity makes decoloniality not just an ‘option’
but a civilisational imperative, which can no longer be
delayed. However, I am in no position to universalise this
argument as my vision in this regard is limited to Bharat.
Also, I recognise that decoloniality may not be the silver
bullet to all of Bharat’s civilisational challenges, that it may
not have all the answers to the questions that stare at
Bharat’s indigenous consciousness; but it certainly has the
potential to serve as a lens for Bharat to be better equipped
to square up to its past and make sense of its own journey
by applying its own frameworks instead of using frameworks
that subtly or overtly exert an imperial colonialising
influence.
One of the important premises of the preceding discussion
is that Bharat is a ‘civilisation’ with an Indic consciousness
whose agency was interfered with by European coloniality in
ways that have resulted in the internalisation of the
European worldview as the benchmark to be lived up to.
Therefore, before I proceed to discuss the impact of
European coloniality on Bharat’s consciousness, in the next
chapter I will attempt to make good the assumption that
Bharat was and remains a civilisation, at least at the level of
the society, which has implications for formulation of
policies and lawmaking. This can offer clarity on what makes
a society a civilisation and why Bharat must be treated as
one, so as to better understand (a) the true impact of the
European coloniser’s nation-state project on Bharat and (b)
whether Bharat’s journey towards constitutionalism reflects
its self-understanding as a civilisation.
7
Bharat as a Civilisation
Mahabharata: Bharatvarsh
Names of places in India associated with the Mahabharata (US Library of
Congress: Geography and Map Division).
Ever since British author and columnist Martin Jacques
1
proposed about a decade ago that China was a ‘civilisationstate’ which Europe could not relate to given the latter’s
nation-state-based worldview,2 similar assertions have been
made about Bharat being a civilisation-state. In 2014, Dr.
Koenraad Elst wrote a piece on his blog titled ‘India as a
civilisation-state’ wherein, citing Zhang Weiwei’s book The
China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State,3 he contended
that Bharat too must make a similar case for itself.4 Dr. Elst’s
position was based on his view that Bharat’s ‘selfunderstanding’ supported its case of being or becoming a
civilisation-state. Subsequently, this position has been
echoed by others, including the current National Security
Advisor Shri Ajit Doval.5 In my opinion, such a position must
be examined and made good from both a conceptual and
practical perspective if the purpose is to give effect to that
position at the level of law and policymaking, failing which,
it would be reduced to just another fashionable buzzword or
a mere talking point.
The claim that Bharat is a civilisation-state requires us to
address the following layers at the very least, including
those which inhere in them:
1. What are the ingredients that constitute a nation and
a civilisation, and what distinguishes the two?
2. What separates a civilisation-state from a nationstate?
3. What makes Bharat a civilisation, if at all?
4. Independent of how the Constitution treats Bharat,
what is the basis for the view that a civilisation-state
model suits Bharat better than the nation-state model?
5. If Bharat is a civilisation, does the Constitution’s
treatment do justice to its nature?
I will try and address each of these questions as organically
as possible with primary reliance being placed on Indic and
pro-Indic voices (broadly, ‘Indic scholars’), who have taken
the considered position that Bharat is indeed a civilisation,
based on their knowledge of its history and consciousness.
While I leave it to experts to comment on the merits of the
scholarship, the scope of my enquiry for the purposes of the
discussion at hand is limited to assessing their positions for
consensus on Bharat’s status as a civilisation and their basis
for holding such a view.
My other objective, as stated previously, is to draw the
attention of the reader to Indic scholars whose works have
either been systematically sidelined or completely pixelated
on the ground that they championed ‘Hindu nationalism’
and sought to exclude non-Hindu identities from the journey
of Bharat. These labels were expectedly hurled at such
scholars by the postcolonial and Marxist schools, which have
normalised such labels in mainstream discourse, largely due
to the monopoly enjoyed by them in the realms of
education, journalism, culture and policymaking. Instead of
engaging with Indic scholars on the merits of their position,
the approach of the postcolonial and Marxist schools has
been to impute anti-minority and hyper-nationalist motives
to the views of such scholars in order to pre-empt them
from reaching a wider audience.
Clearly, the dark legacy of European nationalism and its
destructive tendencies have been foisted on genuine Indic
decolonial attempts in order to silence the voice of the
native. As stated earlier, the Eurocentric criticism and
stifling of indigenous efforts to regain agency over native
consciousness is writ large on the conduct of the
postcolonial and Marxist schools. To push back against this,
keeping with the spirit of decoloniality, through the ensuing
discussion I have attempted to showcase the views of a few
early Indic scholars, namely Har Bilas Sarda, Radha Kumud
Mookerji, Jadunath Sarkar and R.C. Majumdar, who
collectively lend support to the position that Bharat is
indeed a civilisation and must be treated as such.
These scholars, to me, represent the beginnings of an
Indic Renaissance in the realm of history, starting in the
second half of the nineteenth century when Bharat’s
aspirations of self-determination were being called into
question on the ground that Bharat had never been ‘one
nation’, and therefore could not aspire to independent
statehood. It is in response to this colonial position that such
Indic voices started generating rigorous scholarship that
reinforced the unity of Bharat as a civilisation, and went to
the extent of confidently asserting that (a) Bharat’s
indigenous identity must be traced to a period before the
Islamic invasions (Middle Eastern colonialism) and European
colonisation, and (b) ‘the Hindu religion’ was the glue that
bound this civilisation. Their caveat, however, was that Indic
OET systems must not be understood through the prism of
the faith of the European coloniser despite using the word
‘religion’ to crudely refer to them for colonial consumption.
It is important to appreciate that while some of these works
were published in English and also cited or quoted the views
of Europeans on the subject, they endeavoured at talking
back to the European coloniser and reclaiming the agency of
indigenous consciousness to speak for and about itself.
Through their scholarship, these stalwarts successfully
refuted the self-serving claim of the White European
Christian coloniser that it was his civilising benevolence that
led to disparate and unrelated communities being stitched
into one political unit. That such Indic voices stood up for
the native at a time when European colonialism was
perhaps at its zenith speaks volumes of their conviction in
the strength and relevance of Indic consciousness. Even if
the works of such scholars suffered from colonial
consciousness to a certain degree, I am willing to overlook it
given the times such scholars lived in, the resources at their
disposal and their leonine attempts at speaking truth to a
global colonising, enslaving and evangelising power. To my
mind, such Indic scholars bravely pursued the goals of
decoloniality whilst living under the yoke of the coloniser.
This is in stark contrast to the deeply entrenched coloniality
that one witnesses in a supposedly independent
contemporary ‘India’ in every discussion where Bharat’s
past is subject to scrutiny with unadulterated hindsight bias,
sanctimony and judgement.
Among the earliest Indic scholars was Har Bilas Sarda,
whose book Hindu Superiority, which was published in 1906,
apart from being relevant to his times, was way ahead of its
time when seen through a decolonial lens.6 Throughout the
book, Sarda uses the term ‘Hindu civilisation’ while referring
to ‘ancient India’. In his discussion on the defining feature of
the Hindu/Indic civilisation, Sarda underscores the integral
and indispensable role of nature in the schema of ‘ancient
Indians’, which formed the basis of Hindu laws and
institutions. This brings out two significant aspects: (a) that
the native identity of Bharat being the Indic/Hindu identity
never appeared to be a matter of contestation in Sarda’s
discussion, and (b) that a harmonious relationship with
nature defines the Hindu/Indic consciousness, from which
emanate its worldview and institutions.
In etching the arc of the Hindu civilisation, what is
astounding in hindsight is that Sarda treats the end of the
Mahabharata War, the beginning of Kali Yuga, as the turning
point in the history of Bharat—an approach consistent with
that of Indic epistemological systems. Now, barely 115
years after Sarda’s book was published, anyone who
believes in the historicity of the Mahabharata War or the
concept of a Kali Yuga, would be ridiculed for putting stock
in ‘myth’ and ‘fiction’. This demonstrates the manner in
which the agency of the Indic consciousness over time and
its subjectivity has become entirely subservient to the
totalising nature of the casual coloniality we encounter in
Bharat today. Ironically, the very same servile colonialised
Indian mind would have no qualms accepting the historicity
of the founder of the White European Christian coloniser’s
faith as a given.
While undertaking an exercise that panoramically surveys
Bharat’s history, consciousness and civilisation, Sarda posits
that religion is one of the tests of civilisation. In the case of
Bharat, according to him, gnana or knowledge is the true
religion of Bharat, which was made possible only due to the
‘pre-eminence of morals, philosophy, literature, science and
general culture’. While making a case for respecting the
Indic consciousness, Sarda cautions against judging the past
through the lens of the present given that the present is a
far cry from the past.
Sarda defines the Hindu religion as an anthology of
eternal truths as follows:
The Hindu religion is the knowledge and comprehension
of those eternal principles which govern nature and
man, those immutable laws which in one sphere are
called ‘science’, in another, ‘true philosophy’. It
concerns itself not with things true under certain
conditions or at certain times: its precepts are ever true,
true in the past, true in the present, true in the future.
True knowledge being one, it takes, without any
distinction, into its fold, Indians, Arabs, Europeans,
Americans, Africans and Chinese. Its principles
circumscribe the globe and govern all humanity.
When the construct of ‘religion’ is reconsidered in light of
this description, it is evident that the term does not do
justice to Sanatana Dharma, exposing the problem of
applying colonial Christian OET and linguistics to Bharat’s
indigenous systems that are rooted in an onto-epistemology
which is vastly different from that of the coloniser’s.
Naturally, the White European Christian coloniser could not
wrap his head around it and presumed that ethnicity and
religion were as related in the Indic ‘religion’ as they were in
his faith and worldview, which led to ethnocentric
representations of Indic OET as well as its societal
structures.
Starting in 1912, another scholar who wrote extensively
on various aspects of the Indic civilisation spanning over
four decades was Radha Kumud Mookerji. In the context of
establishing the civilisational character of Bharat, five of his
works are particularly helpful: The Fundamental Unity of
India (1914), Nationalism in Hindu Culture (1921), Hindu
Civilisation (1936 and 1950),7 A New Approach to the
Communal Problem (1943)8 and Akhand Bharat (1945),9 with
the leitmotif of Mookerji’s work being captured in the first
two.
In The Fundamental Unity of India, Mookerji marshals
evidence from sources that are central to the Indic OET to
make a case for its civilisational oneness through the
unification of its geography despite the diversity that meets
the eye.10 Mookerji takes the clear position that this unity
antedates the arrival of the British coloniser by millennia
and therefore, the coloniser cannot remotely claim to have
unified and created ‘India’. The premise of Mookerji’s
position is that in order for a group identity to take shape as
a nation or a civilisation, ‘the fundamental and
indispensable factor is the possession of a common country,
a fixed, definite abode’.
He compares the necessity for a fixed geography for the
blossoming of a national or civilisational identity to a body
through which the spirit operates. It is the place, the
geography, the territory that enables the feeling of
community, which leads to broader identities, such as
national or civilisational. The development of an
independent and identifiable cultural identity, which
includes language, OET, literature and culture, is itself a
function of the place and its characteristics. In the case of a
diverse society, such as Bharat, according to Mookerji, an
‘expanded geographical consciousness’ is a condition
precedent to the creation of a political unit that acts as one.
To make his case for a common expanded Indic
geographical consciousness, Mookerji first draws attention
to the British coloniser’s treatment of Bharat as not one but
a ‘collection of countries’ and cites this Eurocentric
perception as an impediment in making sense of Bharat.
That such a perception is based on European conceptions of
nation-statehood is evident to Mookerji since he specifically
cites the scepticism of Anglo-Indian authorities, such as John
Strachey, who were of the view that ‘there is not and never
was an India, or even any country of India, possessing,
according to European ideas, any sort of unity, physical,
political’.11 It is remarkable that similar sceptical opinions of
Bharat’s consciousness and its history are echoed even in
contemporary Bharat, which is proof of continued coloniality.
To rebut the coloniser’s contention that Bharat did not
exist as a single unit, whether political or geographical,
Mookerji cites authorities on Bharat’s geography, such as
Vincent Arthur Smith and George Chisholm, who were of the
following view12:
India, encircled as she is by seas and mountains, is
indisputably a geographical unit, and as such is rightly
designated by one name. …
There is no part of the world better marked out by
Nature as a region by itself than India, exclusive of
Burma. It is a region indeed full of contrasts in physical
features and in climate, but the features that divide it as
a whole from surrounding regions are too clear to be
overlooked.
Notwithstanding the clear identification of Bharat’s natural
borders, the sheer human diversity contained within it is
bound to confound any observer who superficially attempts
to apply the yardsticks of a ‘nation’ to Bharat. It is evident
that the monochromatic concept of a nation does not do
justice to Bharat, and therefore as opposed to cutting the
head to fit the hat, a different yardstick must be applied,
which is that of a civilisation, given that diversity and scale
are two of the central requirements of a civilisation.
However, that would still require us to demonstrate that
despite the scale and variety, there is something that binds
this vast land and its ocean of humanity. What is the unity
that binds this diversity for it to stake a legitimate claim as
one civilisation?
One may be tempted to draw parallels with the idea of a
‘Christian civilisation’ or ‘Islamic civilisation’ wherein people
belonging to different races, speaking different languages,
are seen as being part of one civilisation; however, given
that Christianity and Islam impose a common faith and
practices that unify the members from within and also
explicitly identify the out-group, it is possible to entertain
the idea of Christian and Islamic civilisations. This cannot be
said of the ‘Indic civilisation’ since ‘religion’, as understood
in the Abrahamic sense, does not apply to Indic OET, as a
consequence of which it may not be possible to distil visible
commonalities with the same ease as in Christianity or
Islam. In fact, that temptation must be avoided since even
the attempt to define a fundamental concept, such as unity
in the Abrahamic sense, is proof of unconscious Abrahamic
coloniality at work, which defeats the very object of
undertaking a decolonial approach to defining an Indic
civilisational identity.
Mookerji addresses the question of civilisational unity and
quotes Vincent Arthur Smith on the subject, who wrote
extensively on Bharat between 1893 and 191913:
The civilisation of India has many features which
differentiate it from that of all other regions of the world;
while they are common to the whole country or rather
continent in a degree sufficient to justify its treatment
as a unit in the history of human social and intellectual
development.
Building on this thought and to demonstrate that such
evolution and existence as a single unit with vast internal
diversity was a matter of antiquity with no role played by
the European coloniser, Mookerji cites the use of names,
such as ‘Jambudvipa’ and ‘Bharatavarsha’, to identify this
vast geography both by its people and outsiders. He clarifies
that while Jambudvipa is a geographical reference,
Bharatavarsha is a political reference, both of which
demonstrate
a
unified
geographical
and
political
consciousness much before the idea of a British identity was
even born. The underlying premise behind Mookerji’s
argument is that if a landmass with immense variety,
natural and human, is given a common name, it is proof of
unity in diversity with clear historical and political
significance.
The unification of this land by Emperor Bharata after
whom Bharatavarsha is named, just as Rome is derived
from its founder Romulus, is the argument advanced by
Mookerji to establish Bharat’s civilisational unity. He
marshals evidence from the Aitareya Brahmana of the Rig
Veda to support his argument. While I am in no position to
refute or accept this argument as someone who is not
formally trained in the Vedas, I understand Mookerji’s
reliance on the Vedas given their centrality to Indic OET and
their treatment as documents of historicity. Coloniality
would result in the Vedas being dismissed as embellished
and exaggerated myths, while decoloniality would require
us to respect them as primary sources of indigenous OET,
and therefore not apply colonial benchmarks to what
indigeneity has to say about the journey of this land and its
civilisation.
At this point, I must admit that Mookerji’s work appears to
be premised on the existence of an Aryan identity, which
remains the subject of intense debate even till date, with
the evidence perhaps going against the Aryan Invasion
Theory (AIT). In fact, the treatment of AIT as a colonial
invention driven by the European coloniser’s race-driven
consciousness shall be dealt with briefly in Chapter 9. In any
case, since this issue is for better qualified people and
domain experts to comment on, I will limit myself to the
position that the spread of a common culture and civilisation
through the efforts of Emperor Bharata, from whom the
name Bharat is derived, is attested to by Indic sources.
According to Mookerji, such efforts resulted in establishing
cultural unity within a ‘federation’ of ‘different creeds, cults
and cultures with liberty to each to preserve its own special
features and genius and contribute its own quota to enrich
the central culture’.14 In that sense, Bharat’s civilisation may
be understood as a federal civilisation with multiple subidentities that are free to retain their identities but have
remained culturally and politically bound for millennia. This
is evidenced by the fact that this land has a recorded history
of being politically referred to as ‘Bharatavarsha’ or ‘Bharat’
without interruption notwithstanding the Islamic invasions or
European
colonisation.
Simply
put,
Bharat’s
selfunderstanding as a single cultural, civilisational and political
unit has not changed and its internal diversity has not come
in the way of such unity in the least. The European
worldview, which puts stock in the domination of ‘one
nation’ or ‘one people’ over others at the expense of the
identity of others or their very existence, naturally, cannot
seem to fathom what keeps Bharat together despite its
diversity.
Apart from citing the use of a common name to identify
this part of the world as a single civilisational unit, Mookerji
explains the nature of Indic land ontology, the
understanding of which, according to me, is critical to
distinguish it from the European coloniser’s territorial
approach. Mookerji explains that the connection of the Indic
civilisation with Bharat rests on its veneration of the land,
quite literally, since She is worshipped as the vast Mother
who is a living Deity with Her geographical attributes, such
as the land and its rivers, being woven in hymns and
prayers to simultaneously evoke shared feelings of
devotion, unity and patriotism. This deification of the land
itself, the blending of faith and patriotism, is proof of the
inseparable and most fundamental connect between the
land and its civilisation. The gradual expansion of this
civilisation’s geographical consciousness went hand in hand
with the expansion of its presence, and is reflected in the
accommodation of a larger geography over time in the
hymns of the Vedas. As opposed to being the subject of
conquest and dominion, Bharat is treated as an object of
worship, with respect for its geographical attributes being
richly reflected in the hymns. This brings out the
fundamental divergence between the attitudes of Middle
Eastern and European colonialities to Bharat and nature on
the one hand, and the attitude of the indigenous Indic
consciousness towards its sacred geography on the other.
On this, Mookerji has the following to say15:
The perennial beauty of the Himalayas has captivated
the national imagination and has made them the refuge
of holy men, drawing unending streams of pilgrims.
Indeed, the Hindu’s pilgrimages are always to the
glacier-clad mountain, the palm-clad sea-shore or
ocean-isle, or the almost impenetrable depths of hill and
jungle, where the tread of the generations of Man has
scarcely been heard, and Nature left free to exercise her
healing and healthful influence. Thus, the Indian treats
the beauty of place in a peculiar way, foreign to the
West: his method of appreciating and celebrating it is
quite different. A spot of beauty is no place for social
enjoyment or self-indulgence; it is the place for self-
restraint, for solitary meditation which leads the mind
from nature up to Nature’s God.
Had Niagara been situated on the Ganges, how
different would have been its valuation by humanity.
Instead of occasional picnics and railway pleasure-trips,
the perennial pilgrimage of worshipping crowds. Instead
of parks, asramas. Instead of hotels, temples. Instead of
ostentatious excess, simple austerity. Instead of the
desire to harness its mighty forces to the chariot of
human utility, an absorbing subjectivity, a complete
detachment from the body and the outward world to
feed the life of the spirit!
Thus, the institution of pilgrimage is undeniably a
most
powerful
instrument
for
developing
the
geographical sense in the people which enables them to
think and feel that India is not a mere congeries of
geographical fragments, but a single, though immense,
organism, filled with the tide of one strong pulsating life
from end to end. The visit to holy places as an
imperative religious duty has made wide travelling a
national habit in India in all ages of life, with young and
old alike, and travelling in ages preceding the era of
steam and mechanical transport could not but promote
a deep knowledge of the tracts traversed which is easily
escaped by modern globe-trotters. It was this supremely
Indian institution in fact which served in the past in
place of the modern railway and facilities for travel to
promote popular movements from place to place and
intercommunication between parts producing a
perception of the whole. It allowed no parochial,
provincial sense to grow up which might interfere with
the growth of the idea of the geographical unity of the
mighty motherland; allowed no sense of physical
comforts to stand in the way of the sacred duty of
intimately knowing one’s mother country; and softened
the severities of old-world travelling by breaking the
pilgrim’s route by a holy halting place at short intervals.
It is difficult indeed to count up the innumerable sacred
spots which an overflowing religious feeling has planted
throughout India.
This excerpt captures the essence of my deliberations in the
previous section on the vast differences in the land ontology
of the European coloniser and indigenous societies. From its
mountains to its rivers, almost every geographical feature of
Bharat is treated as a place of pilgrimage, which brings out
the triple matrix of nature, faith and patriotism that was
used to forge cultural unity while keeping the diversity alive.
In fact, according to Mookerji, the institution of pilgrimage
not only sanctified the parts but also mandated reverence of
the whole. For instance, worship of the seven rivers, the
seven mountains, the seven cities, the four abodes of
pilgrimage and the like created and strengthened the idea
of Bharat as a sacred geography. As a consequence, the
people were not merely encouraged but also enjoined to see
themselves as citizens of a living civilisation whose
territorial metes and bounds were deeply embedded in
popular memory through traditions, prayers and rituals. The
network of shrines spread across the length and breadth of
the land naturally triggered a movement of people so that
their allegiance to vibrant regional identities did not
submerge or prevail over the civilisational identity. Simply
put, from the Vedic period to the time of Adi
Shankaracharya, the establishment of a network of
pilgrimages in the extremities of the land has served to
reinforce respect for nature and the fundamental unity of
this land and its people as the inheritors of one civilisation
with federal components contained within its bosom.
Mookerji supports this central assertion in the book with
multiple references from what he calls ‘Hindu Sources’ and
what we may call Indic OET in the context of our discussion.
While these sources served as positive proof of an
identified landmass being associated with a specific culture,
the negative proof, according to Mookerji, lay in the fact that
all these objects of veneration, that is, the foci and loci of
religious and cultural identities were located within the
same geography as opposed to in a distant land. He
substantially reiterates this position in his work Nationalism
in Hindu Culture (1921)16; however, what takes the
discussion forward is his view that the principal sects of
Hinduism not only advanced Indic spiritual thought but also
strengthened the bonds of their followers to this land by not
limiting themselves to any particular part of the country.
According to Mookerji17:
All the subordinate sects of Hinduism stand on the
common platform of a larger outlook, an imperial
conception
of
the
geographical
integrity
and
individuality of the mighty motherland; all the creeds
have a common catholicity so far as a devotion to the
motherland, a sense of its complete sacredness, are
concerned the sacredness not merely of the whole, but
of each and all of its parts….
.… Thus, if one is a Saiva, the Sastras present before
him the necessity of his cultivation of the conception of
the totality of that vast area throughout which are
scattered the various places consecrated to the worship
of the great God Siva. If he wants to be a genuine
devotee of his God, he must visit all these various
places, each of which has been exalted into a holy place
for its association with one out of the innumerable
aspects of the deity….
Similarly, for the Vaishnava are singled out
innumerable sacred places distributed throughout the
country in all its four quarters, so that he may be
trained in a wider geographical consciousness and made
to identify himself with the interests of a much larger
country transcending the narrow limitations of his
original place of birth.
Thus, whether the Hindu is a Saiva, or a Vaishnava, or
a Sakta in his choice of the special mode of his spiritual
culture, he is bound to cultivate in common with all his
co-religionists the sense of an expanded geographical
consciousness, which alone can contribute to the
expansion of his mind and soul. Indeed, it has been
rightly assumed and asserted that the physical
geography of India has partially influenced her history
and shaped and moulded the course of her culture and
civilisation.
It is evident that the objective of establishing such networks
even for individual sects was to prevent any sense of
regional parochialism from informing the faith of the
worshipper, apart from, of course, seeking to disseminate
their philosophy in the entirety of Bharat. Consequently, the
deities and the devout belong to all of Bharat and all of
Bharat belongs to the deities and the devout. This firm
territorial connection between Indic OET systems and Bharat
is what makes the Indic OET native to this land and, as a
corollary, also explains why the OETs that inspire and drive
Middle Eastern and European colonialities are not native to
it. This is not a matter of subjective opinion or expression of
xenophobia of any kind but is a statement of fact.
The other important layer that needs to be peeled away is
that while the term ‘nationalism’ has indeed been used by
scholars, such as Mookerji, to make a case for Indian
nationalism based on Hindu nationalism, their use of
‘nationalism’ was meant to signify Bharat acting as a single
political unit without taking away the civilisational character
of Bharat. In that sense, Mookerji’s reference is to
‘civilisational nationalism’, that is, a living federal civilisation
that acts as one insofar as the rest of the world is
concerned. This is obviously very different from the
European conception of a nation whose condition precedent
is internal homogeneity.
At this juncture, before I proceed to discuss Mookerji’s
views further on Bharat’s civilisation and his prescriptions
for its politico-legal and social infrastructure, a relevant
digression is warranted to credibly demonstrate the manner
in which the sum and substance of Mookerji’s cogitation
resonated with the framers of the Indian Constitution. While
in the next section of this book and the sequels to this book
I will examine if Bharat’s movement towards a constitution
and
the
Constitution
itself
are
informed
by
coloniality/colonial consciousness, there is indeed credible
material that reasonably establishes the following:
1. The framers of the Constitution acknowledged the
umbilical cord that connects independent Bharat with its
civilisational history; and
2. The presence of ‘India that is Bharat’ in Article 1 of
the Constitution is the consequence of civilisationally
conscious suggestions that were put forth by several
members of the Constituent Assembly, which were
ultimately accepted.
In support of the first point, I will place reliance on the
Objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly
on 22 January 1947, which is as follows18:
(1) This Constituent Assembly declares its firm and
solemn resolve to proclaim India as an independent
Sovereign Republic and to draw up for her future
governance a Constitution:
(2) WHEREIN the territories that now comprise British
India, the territories that now form the Indian States,
and such other parts of India as are outside British India
and the States as well as such other territories as are
willing to be constituted into the Independent Sovereign
India shall be a Union of them all; and
(3) WHEREIN the said territories, whether with their
present boundaries or with such others as may be
determined by the Constituent Assembly and thereafter
according to law of the Constitution shall possess and
retain the status of autonomous units, together with
residuary powers, and exercise all powers and functions
of government and administration, save and except
such powers and functions as are vested in or assigned
to the Union, or as are inherent or implied in the Union
or resulting therefrom, and
(4) WHEREIN all power and authority of the Sovereign
Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of
government, are derived from the people; and
(5) WHEREIN shall be guaranteed and secured to all the
people of India justice, social, economic, and political;
equality of status, of opportunity, and before the law;
freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship,
vocation, association and action, subject to law and
public morality; and
(6) WHEREIN adequate safeguards shall be provided for
minorities, backward and tribal areas, and depressed
and other backward classes; and
(7) WHEREBY shall be maintained the integrity of the
territory of the Republic and its sovereign rights on land,
sea and air according to justice and the law of civilised
nations; and
(8) this ancient land attains its rightful and honoured
place in the world and make its full and willing
contribution to the promotion of world peace and the
welfare of mankind [emphasis added].
Clearly, the framers of the Constitution expressly
acknowledged that they were not founding a hitherto nonexistent country, but were, in fact, putting together a statist
apparatus for an ancient civilisation of which they were
descendants. In fact, there is nothing in the Constituent
Assembly debates that suggests that the framers of the
Constitution operated under the belief that Bharat was a
synthetic product of colonial efforts or that Bharat owed its
very existence to the Constitution. In other words, there is
no basis for the colonialised myth that Bharat was created
by the British coloniser prior to which it lacked a sense of
self and history.
With regard to the use of ‘India that is Bharat’ in Article 1
of the Constitution, for the limited purposes of the specific
discussion at hand, let us start from the point where the
Draft Constitution prepared by the Drafting Committee19 was
taken up for a clause-by-clause debate by the Constituent
Assembly for the first time on 15 November 1948, after the
Draft Constitution was presented to the Assembly on 4
November 1948. The Draft Article 1 of the Draft Constitution
read as follows:
1. (1) India shall be a Union of States.
(2) The States shall mean the States for the time being
specified in Parts I, II and III of the First Schedule.
(3) The territory of India shall comprise(a) The territories of the States;
(b) The territories for the time being specified in Part IV
of the First Schedule; and
(c) Such other territories as may be acquired [emphasis
added].
The said Article was considered and debated in the
Constituent Assembly on 15 November 1948, 17 November
1948, 17 September 1949 and 18 September 1949. From
the debates of 15 November 1948, following are the
relevant excerpts on the amendments proposed to the Draft
Article 1 on the issue of naming of the country20:
ARTICLE 1.
Shri M. Ananthasyanam Ayyangar (Madras: General):
Sir, I submit that amendments Nos. 83 to 96, both
inclusive, may kindly be allowed to stand over. They
relate to the alternative names, or rather the
substitution of names—BHARAT, BHARAT VARSHA,
HINDUSTAN—for the word INDIA, in Article 1, clause (1).
It requires some consideration. Through you I am
requesting the Assembly to kindly pass over these items
and allow these amendments to stand over for some
time. A few days later when we come to the Preamble
these amendments might be then taken up. I am
referring to amendments Nos. 83 to 96, both inclusive,
and also amendment No. 97 which reads:
‘That in clause (1) of article 1, for the word “India” the
word “Bharat (India)” and for the word “States” the
word “Provinces” be substituted.’
So I would like all these to stand over.
Mr. Vice-President: Is that agreed to by the House?
Honourable Members: Yes.
Shri Lokanath Misra (Orissa: General): Of course I
would have no objection, Sir, if you defer consideration
of these amendments for two or three days, but I beg to
bring to your notice that amendment No. 85, which
stands in my name, does not only mean to change the
name of India into “Bharatavarsha”, but it means
something more and I am afraid if you hold over this
amendment those things would be inappropriate at a
later stage. I am submitting that I may be allowed to
move this amendment, of course without committing
myself to the change of the name of India to
“Bharatavarsha” or otherwise. Though I am not insisting
on the change of name just now, I ask that I may be
allowed to move the other part of my amendment.
Shri M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar: My request was
that amendments relating only to the name may stand
over and in his case on the understanding that the word
“India” be changed to some other name, he may move
his amendment. I am not asking that the other portion
of this amendment may not be moved.
Mr. Vice-President: So the Honourable Member may
take the opportunity of moving the second part of his
amendment at the proper place.
In addition to the above-proposed amendments with respect
to constitutionally naming the country as Bharat, the
insertion of Part I-A to the Constitution after Part I was
proposed by Shibban Lal Saxena. Following is the relevant
portion of the amendment proposed by him:
Prof. Shibban Lal Saksena (United Provinces: General):
Mr. Vice-President, Sir, the amendment moved by Mr.
Tyagi is a very important amendment. I have myself
given notice of a similar amendment (No. 189) which
runs as follows:
That the following new Part be inserted after Part I and
the subsequent Parts and articles be renumbered
accordingly:‘Part I-A General Principles
6. The name of the Union shall be BHARAT.
7. Bharat shall be a sovereign, independent,
democratic, socialist Republic.
8. All powers of government, legislative, executive
and judicial, shall be derived from the people, and shall
be exercisable only by or on the authority of the organs
of the government established by this Constitution.
9. The National Flag of Bharat shall be the tricolour of
saffron, white and green of pure hand-spun and handwoven Khadi cloth, with the Dharmachakra of Asoka
inscribed in blue in the centre in the middle stripe, the
ratio between the width and breath being 2:1.
10. Hindi written in the Devanagri script shall be the
National language of Bharat:
Provided that each State in the Union shall have the
right to choose its own regional language as its State
language in addition to Hindi for use inside that
particular State.
11. English shall be the second official language of
Bharat during the transition period of the first five years
of the inauguration of this Constitution.
12. The National Anthem of Bharat shall be the
‘Vandemataram’ which is reproduced in the Second
Scheduled.
[Note:-The subsequent Schedules be renumbered
accordingly.]
13. The Arms of Bharat consist of the Three Lions
above the pedestal and the Dharmachakra, as are
depicted on the top of the Asoka pillar at Sarnath.
14. The capital of Bharat is the City of Delhi.’
Since the question of naming of the country was agreed to
be adjourned to another date, it was taken up on 17
November 1948.21 However, on the said date, Pandit Govind
Ballabh Pant wanted it deferred on the ground that the
members of the Assembly had ‘not been able to reach
unanimity on this important point’. Another member, Seth
Govind Das, in support of the substitution of India with
Bharat, was also of the view that the decision must be taken
unanimously since it related to the very naming of the
country and affected how the rest of the world perceived
the country. Dr. Ambedkar too threw his weight behind the
decision to defer the issue once again, and accordingly the
matter was postponed for future consideration. Following
are the relevant excerpts of the debate of 17 November
1948:
Mr. Vice-President: I find that so far as item No. 85 is
concerned the first part of it may be moved as the other
portion has been disposed of already. I therefore call
upon Mr. Lokanath Misra to move the first part.
The Honourable Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant (United
Provinces: General): Sir, I move that we now pass on the
Article 2 and postpone discussion on the remaining
amendments to Article 1. So far we have not been able
to reach unanimity on this important point. I am not
without hope that if the discussion is postponed, it may
be possible to find some solution that may be
acceptable to all. So, nothing will be lost. After all we
have to take the decision, today, tomorrow or the day
after: nobody will suffer thereby, but if we can find
something that satisfies everybody, I think the House
will feel all the stronger for facing the tasks that lie
ahead of it. I hope there will be no difference of opinion
on this point and I do not see why there should be any
opposition from any quarter. After all, we will take the
decision. Nobody else is going to add to or diminish the
strength of any section or of any group here, and we are
not here as sections or groups. Every one of us is here
to make the best contribution towards the solution of
these most intricate, complicated and difficult problems
and if we handle them with a little patience, I hope we
will be able to settle them more satisfactorily than we
would otherwise. So, I suggest that the discussion on
the rest of the amendments to Article 1 be postponed.
Shri H.V. Kamath (C.P. and Berar: General): Mr. VicePresident, Sir, I appreciate the arguments that have
been advanced by my honourable Friend, Pandit Govind
Ballabh Pant. I only wish to know from you, Sir, for how
long a time these amendments Nos. 85 to 96 both
inclusive are going to be held over. It will create, I
submit, Sir, a very bad impression in the outside world
and in our own country, if we go on postponing the
consideration of the amendments dealing with the very
first word in the very first clause.
Honourable Members: No, no.
Shri H.V. Kamath: And if we go on postponing the
consideration of these amendments indefinitely, it
would certainly create a bad impression. I want to know,
therefore, for how long I will be held over.
Shri R.K. Sidhwa (C.P. and Berar: General): Sir, I am
rather surprised at the argument advanced by my
honourable Friend, Mr. Kamath that if we postpone this
matter indefinitely the outside world will be rather
surprised. On the contrary, if we come to a satisfactory
solution and a unanimous decision on this matter, the
outside world will have really a very high opinion of this
House. I feel, therefore, that the suggestion made by my
honourable Friend Pandit Pant should certainly be
accepted unanimously. I am rather surprised that of all
persons Mr. Kamath should have come forward to speak
in this manner. What Pandit Pant stated was really a
very fine solution and I was expecting from this House
that instead of creating any kind of dissension, if we
really come to a unanimous decision, it will be really a
record in the history of this Constitution. I therefore,
very heartily and strongly support the motion moved by
my honourable friend, Pandit Pant.
The Honourable Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I support the
suggestion made by Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant.
Seth Govind Das (C.P. and Berar: General): Sir, I
wholeheartedly support Pandit Pant’s proposition. The
House very well knows how clear I am for naming our
country BHARAT, but at the same time, we must try to
bring unanimity of every group in this House. Of course,
if that is not possible, we can go our own ways; but up
to the time there was any possibility of reaching a
unanimous decision by any compromise, that effort
must be made. Sir, I Support this proposition, and I hope
that by the efforts of our leaders, there will not be any
division on fundamental points like this, and not only
this proposition, but other propositions also, like that our
national language, national script etc., we shall be able
to carry unanimously. I, therefore, support the views just
expressed by the Honourable Pandit Pant.
Shri H.V. Kamath: I only wanted to know for how long
the amendments will be held over.
An Honourable Member: It may be a day, a week or a
fortnight.
Mr. Vice-President: I hold that a discussion of these
few clauses should be held over till sufficient time has
been given for arriving at some sort of understanding.
This will be to the best interests of the House and of the
country at large.
The next time the issue was taken up for significant
discussion by the Assembly was on 17 September 1949,
that is, after close to a year of its introduction. Dr. Ambedkar
brought up the Draft Article 1 at the fag end of the session
on the said date as follows22:
Mr. President: There is one more article, article 1.
The Honourable Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Sir, I propose to
move amendment No. 130 and incorporate in it my
amendment No. 197 which makes a little verbal change
in sub-clause (2).
Sir, I move:
‘That for clauses (1) and (2) of article 1, the following
clauses be substituted:(1) India, that is, Bharat shall be a Union of States.
(2) The States and the territories thereof shall be the
States and their territories for the time being specified
in Parts 1, 11 and 111 of the First Schedule.’
It bears noting that the language of Draft Article 1, as
originally contained in the Draft Constitution in November
1948 presented to the Assembly by Dr. Ambedkar, did not
contain ‘Bharat’ in it. In contrast, when Draft Article 1 was
taken up for discussion on 17 September 1949, the version
moved by Dr. Ambedkar replaced the original Draft version
with ‘India, that is, Bharat’. It may be reasonably inferred
that Dr. Ambedkar agreed, in principle, with the
amendments proposed by Lokanath Misra and Shibban Lal
Saksena. However, this time Maulana Hasrat Mohani wanted
the discussion to be adjourned to the next day citing paucity
of time to discuss such a cardinal provision. That said, his
primary objection was not to the insertion of Bharat in Draft
Article 1, but was with respect to the use of ‘Union of States’
since he favoured the concept of a republic as opposed to a
Union of States. After a lot of back and forth on the issue of
adjournment, the matter was finally adjourned to another
date. This effectively meant that the question of the naming
of the country was taken up meaningfully only on 18
September 1949, which was the date on which the Article
was finally adopted.23
On 18 September, when the issue was finally taken up,
H.V. Kamath proposed Bharat and Hind as alternatives to
India. Following is the relevant excerpt of the debate, which
also showcases Dr. Ambedkar’s brusqueness in hearing out
other members of the Assembly on such an important issue:
Mr. President: The House will now take up article 1. I
think Mr. Kamath has moved amendment 220 and
finished his speech.
Shri H.V. Kamath: I have not finished my speech, Sir.
Mr. President: Then, go ahead.
Shri H.V. Kamath: I move
‘That in amendment No. 130 of List IV (Eighth Week),
for the proposed clause (1) of article 1, the following be
substituted:(1) Bharat or, in the English language, India, shall be a
Union of States.’
or, alternatively, ‘That in amendment No. 130 of List
IV (Eighth Week), for the proposed clause (1) of article
1, the following be substituted:
“(1) Hind, or, in the English language, India, shall be a
Union of States.”’
Taking my first amendment first, amendment No. 220,
it is customary among most peoples of the world to
have what is called a Namakaran or a naming ceremony
for the new-born. India as a Republic is going to be born
very shortly and naturally there has been a movement
in the country among many sections—almost all
sections—of the people that this birth of the new
Republic should be accompanied by a Namakaran
ceremony as well. There are various suggestions put
forward as to the proper name which should be given to
this new baby of the Indian Republic. The prominent
suggestions have been Bharat, Hindustan, Hind and
Bharatbhumi or Bharatvarsh and names of that kind. At
this stage it would be desirable and perhaps profitable
also to go into the question as to what name is best
suited to this occasion of the birth of the new baby—the
Indian Republic. Some say, why name the baby at all?
India will suffice. Well and good. If there was no need for
a Namakaran ceremony we could have continued India,
but if we grant this point that there must be a new
name to this baby, then of course the question arises as
to what name should be given.
Now, those who argue for Bharat or Bharatvarsh or
Bharatbhumi, take their stand on the fact that this is the
most ancient name of this land. Historians and
philologists have delved deep into this matter of the
name of this country, especially the origin of this name
Bharat. All of them are not agreed as to the genesis of
this name Bharat. Some ascribe it to the son of
Dushyant and Shakuntala who ‘was also known as
“Sarvadamana” or all-conqueror and who established
his suzerainty and kingdom in this ancient land. After
him this land came to be known as Bharat. Another
school of research scholars hold that Bharat dates back
to Vedic’....
The Honourable Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (Bombay: General):
Is it necessary to trace all this? I do not understand the
purpose of it. It may be well Interesting in some other
place. My Friend accepts the word ‘Bharat’. The only
thing is that he has got an alternative. I am very sorry
but there ought to be some sense of proportion, in view
of the limited time before the House.
Shri H.V. Kamath: I hope it is not for Dr. Ambedkar to
regulate the business of the House.
On being pressed by the President of the Assembly to
choose between Bharat and Hind, Kamath chose Bharat and
objected to the phrase ‘India, that is, Bharat’ as proposed by
Dr. Ambedkar since he felt it was ‘clumsy’ for use in the
Constitution. To support his position, Kamath referred to the
fourth Article of the Irish Constitution which read as follows:
The name of the State is Eire, or, in the English
language, Ireland.
Apart from Kamath, Brajeshwar Prasad too moved an
amendment to Draft Article 1 which contained Bharat. The
said amendment read as follows:
(1) India, that is, Bharat is one integral unit.
Seth Govind Das preferred Bharat to India and relied on the
Vedas, the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the Brahma
Purana and the works of the Chinese monk and traveller
Hiuen Tsang to make his case for Bharat. Kallur Subba Rao
supported Das citing the Rig Veda and the Vayu Purana,
with the geographical metes and bounds of Bharat being
identified as follows:
It means that land that is to the south of the Himalayas
and north of the (Southern ocean) Samundras is called
Bharat.
B.M. Gupta, Ram Sahai and Kamalapathi Tripathi too
favoured the use of Bharat and insisted that Bharat be used
before India in Article 1 if Dr. Ambedkar insisted on retaining
India in Article 1. Tripathi’s contentions in this regard are in
perfect sync with the spirit of decoloniality and the
reclamation of self-identity. Following are a few relevant
excerpts:
Sir, I am enamoured of the historic name of ‘Bharat’.
Even the mere uttering of this word, conjures before us
by a stroke of magic the picture of cultured life of the
centuries that have gone by. In my opinion there is no
other country in the world which has such a history,
such a culture, and such a name, whose age is counted
in milleniums as our country has. There is no country in
the world which has been able to preserve its name and
its genius even after undergoing the amount of
repression, the insults and prolonged slavery which our
country had to pass through. Even after thousands of
years our country is still known as ‘Bharat’. Since Vedic
times, this name has been appearing in our literature.
Our Puranas have all through eulogised the name of
Bharat. The gods have been remembering the name of
this country in the heavens.
The gods have a keen desire to be born in the sacred
land of Bharat and to achieve their supreme goal after
passing their lives here. For us, this name is full of
sacred remembrances. The moment we pronounce this
name, the pictures of our ancient history and ancient
glory and our ancient culture come to our minds. We are
reminded that this is the country where in past ages
great men and great Maharishis gave birth to a great
culture. That culture not only spread over all the
different areas of this land, but crossing its borders,
reached every corner of the Far East too. We are
reminded that on the one hand, this culture reached the
Mediterranean and on the other it touched the shores of
the Pacific. We are reminded that thousands of years
ago, the leaders and thinkers of this country moulded a
great nation and extended their culture to all the four
comers of the world and achieved for themselves a
position of prestige. When we pronounce, this word, we
are reminded of the Mantras of the Rig Veda uttered by
our Maharishis in which they have described the vision
of truth and soul-experience. When we pronounce this
word, we are reminded of those brave words of the
Upanishads which urged humanity to awake, to arise,
and to achieve its goal. When we pronounce this word,
we are reminded of those words of Lord Krishna through
which he taught a practical philosophy to the people of
this country—the philosophy which can enable humanity
even to lay to achieve its goal of peace and bless. When
we pronounce this word, we are reminded of Lord
Buddha, who had boldly told men all over the world that
greatest good of the greatest number, greatest
happiness of the largest number and the welfare of
humanity should be the watch-words of their lives and
that they should awake and arise to promote the welfare
of mortals and gods and to show to the world the path
of knowledge. When we pronounce this word, we are
reminded of Shankaracharya, who gave a new vision to
the world. When we pronounce this word, we are
reminded of the mighty arms of Bhagwan Rama which
by twanging the chord of the bow sent echoes through
the Himalayas, the seas around this land and the
heavens. When we pronounce this word, we are
reminded of the wheel of Lord Krishna which destroyed
the terrible, Imperialism of Kshatriyas from India and
relieved this land of its burden.
Hargovind Pant was in favour of using ‘Bharatvarsha’ and
was keen on doing away with India altogether since he felt
that clinging to India was proof of a colonialised mindset.
Extracted below are his views on the subject:
Shri Hargovind Pant: (United Provinces: General): Mr.
President, during the early sittings of the Assembly I had
moved an amendment to the effect that for the name of
the country, we should have the word ‘Bharat’ or
‘Bharat Varsha’ in place of ‘India’. I am gratified to see
that some change in the name has at last been
accepted. I, however, fail to understand why the word
‘Bharat Varsha’ is not acceptable to the House when the
importance and glory of this word is being admitted by
all here. I do not want to repeat what the other Members
have said in regard to the acceptance of this glorious
word, but I would make only a few observations in
respect of this word.
The word ‘Bharat’ or ‘Bharat Varsha’ is used by us in
our daily religious duties while reciting the Sankalpa.
Even at the time of taking our bath we say in Sanskrit:
‘Jamboo Dwipay, Bharata Varshe, Bharat Khande,
Aryavartay, etc.’
It means that I so and so, of Aryavart in Bharat Khand,
etc. ...
The most celebrated and world-famous poet Kalidasa
has used this word in his immortal work depicting the
story of his two great characters—King Dushyanta and
his queen Shakuntala. The son born of them was named
‘Bharat’ and his Kingdom was known as ‘Bharat’. There
are many fascinating descriptions of the heroism of
Bharat in our ancient books. It is said that in his
childhood he used to play with lion cubs and
overpowered them. We are well acquainted with the
story of Bharat. I fail to understand, in view of all this,
why we are reluctant to accept, from the core of our
heart the word ‘Bharat Varsha’ as the name of our
country.
So far as the word ‘India’ is concerned, the Members
seem to have, and really I fail to understand why, some
attachment for it. We must know that this name was
given to our country by foreigners who having heard of
the riches of this land were tempted towards it and had
robbed us of our freedom in order to acquire the wealth
of our country. If we, even then, cling to the word ‘India’,
it would only show that we are not ashamed of having
this insulting word which has been imposed on us by
alien rulers. Really, I do not understand why we are
accepting this word.
‘Bharat’ or ‘Bharat Varsha’ is and has been the name
of our country for ages according to our ancient history
and tradition and in fact this word inspires enthusiasm
and courage in its [sic]; I would, therefore, submit that
we should have no hesitation at all in accepting this
word. It will be a matter of great shame for us if we do
not accept this word and have some other word for the
name of our country. I represent the people of the
Northern part of India where sacred places like Shri
Badrinath, Shri Kedarnath, Shri Bageshwar and
Manasarovar are situated. I am placing before you the
wishes of the people of this part. I may be permitted to
state, Sir, that the people of this area want that the
name of our country should be ‘Bharat Varsha’ and
nothing else.
After such detailed discussions, Dr. Ambedkar’s amendment,
‘India, that is, Bharat’, was adopted in Article 1.
Notwithstanding the adoption of Dr. Ambedkar’s version,
which had both India and Bharat in it, it is abundantly clear
from the debates that the members of the Constituent
Assembly were acutely aware of the civilisational
significance of the use of ‘Bharat’, its identity and its
geographical extent as evidenced by Bharat’s indigenous
epistemology. By adopting a name that harkens back to a
civilisational identity that antedates the arrival of both
Middle Eastern and European colonialities, the framers of
the Constitution cemented the position that independent
Bharat is indeed the successor State to the Indic civilisation.
This is consistent with my position in the previous chapter
wherein I had identified the ‘cut-off’ period of the eighth
century to define Bharat’s indigeneity. In this regard, both
the framers and Indic scholars, such as Mookerji, are on the
same page even with regard to the use of Indic sources to
arrive at the same conclusions. Having said that, it could be
argued that the use of both India and Bharat represents a
dual persona with some identifying more with India and
others with Bharat.24 Decoloniality would require that the
name Bharat alone be retained and the tendency to view
Bharat through the lens of India must be addressed and
rectified in the fields of history, production of knowledge,
education and the law.
That said, merely because Bharat is a living civilisation in
the realm of society, it does not translate to Bharat being a
civilisation-state. In other words, a State that presides over
a civilisation is not a civilisation-state; instead, a State that
is conscious of the civilisational character of its society and
structures itself on civilisational lines is a civilisation-state.
Therefore, one needs to go beyond the name Bharat to
understand if the manner in which the Indian State has been
structured and functions, is alive to the fact that the society
it presides over is a federal civilisation, and not a nation in
the European sense. Specifically, for the Indian State to be
treated as an Indic civilisation-state, we would need to
examine whether the State has been built on the
fundamental building blocks of this civilisation, and whether
its political and social infrastructure viewed through the
prism of its Constitution is designed to replace the colonial
consciousness with Indic consciousness.
This takes us back to Mookerji’s The Fundamental Unity of
India, where he spells out what has been and must be the
framework of Bharat as a civilisation-state as well as the
principles for harmonious coexistence between sovereign
nations based on Bharat’s internal experience. The
civilisational treatment of Bharat is again implicit in the
latter approach for it treats Bharat as the microcosm of the
world, not because of some divine mandate but because its
sheer diversity and existence as a single civilisational unit
for millennia are treated as exemplars for the rest of the
world.
Given that Mookerji’s conclusion has several layers that
warrant unpacking in the context of multiple current-day
debates surrounding Bharat’s handling of consciousness and
identity-related issues, I have reproduced a significant
portion of it below to pull each of the threads it touches
upon:
Where the country is more a cultural than a material
possession, it appeals less to the instinct of
appropriation. There is more of disinterested sharing,
more of community of life and enjoyment. India thus
early became the happy home of many races, cults, and
cultures, coexisting in concord, without seeking
overlordship or mutual extermination. With this high and
complex initial responsibility India becomes the land of
composite systems in respect of race, language, civil
and personal law, social structure, and religious cult.
Other national systems exclude the possibility of such
radical diversities, and break down in the attempt to
unify them. Federation and Imperialism have perhaps
been born too late for their task.
Such composite systems are built up necessarily on
the basis of an extended unit of society. Here the social
and political composition is based on the group, and not
the individual, as the unit: e.g. the family, the village
community, the caste, and various other similar
corporations, of which a special study is made in
another work of mine entitled Local Government in
Ancient India (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2nd ed., 1920).
Such a principle of social construction minimises the
friction and collision of atomic units and helps to
harmonise the parts in and through the whole.
Biologically speaking, such constructions correspond to
the more developed forms of organic life which, in their
nervous interconnections, show a greater power of
integration than the looser and more incoherent
organisms lower down in the evolutionary series.
Accordingly, it should be further noted, it is the quasiinstinctive postulates and conventions of group-life
which come to be formulated as law, and not the
mandate, command, or decree of a single, central
authority in the State. Law, under these conditions, is
not an artifice, but a natural growth of consensus and
communal life. Thus, ever new social and political
constructions arise by the original and direct action of
the groups and communities in the State, and not by the
intervention of the absolute sovereign power and its
creative fiats, as under all centralised constitutions. The
nationality formed on such principles is a composite
nationality, and not one of the rigid, unitary type.
The relation of the State to its constituent groups
becomes, under this scheme, one of copartnership,
each maintaining the others in their place. It is not the
State that, by its sanction or charter, creates its own
constituent bodies or corporations, but, on the other
hand, the groups establish, and are established by, the
State. The genius of the Hindus has adhered firmly to
this fundamental principle of political organisation
amidst the most trying and adverse conditions in the
course of their history. Even when the State ceased to
be a national or organic one (as under the Mahomedan
rule, for instance) they fell back upon the resources and
possibilities of that ultimate political creed to work out
the necessary adjustments and adaptations to the new
situation as means of their self-preservation as a people.
They clung fast to their time-honoured and confirmed
conception of the State, which was based upon a
respect for the original and primary rights of group-life,
for the sanctity of natural groupings, the inviolability of
the vital modes of human association, to which a full
scope was, accordingly, never denied. And thus, the
Hindu State came naturally to be associated, and indeed
very largely identified, with a multitude of institutions
and corporations of diverse types, structures, and
functions, in and through which the many-sided genius
of the race expressed itself. It was these intermediate
bodies between the individual and the State which
mattered most to the life of the people, to the
conservation of their culture, as the real seats and
centres of national activity.
Accordingly, when a State of this complex composition
and structure happens to pass under foreign control, the
nation can maintain the freedom of its life and culture
by means of that larger and more vital part of the State
which is not amenable to foreign control, and is, by
design, independent of the central authority. An
elaborately devised machinery of social and economic
self-government amply safeguards the interests of
national life and culture. What is lost is but an inferior
and insignificant limb of the body politic: its more vital
organs are quite intact. It is as if the mere outwork has
fallen the main stronghold of national life stands firm
and entire against the onslaughts of alien aggression,
protected by a deep and wide gulf of separation and
aloofness from the domain of central authority, which
can find no points of substantial contact with the life of
the people and no means of controlling the institutions
expressing and moulding that life. It is thus that Hindu
culture has had a continuous history uninterrupted by
the foreign domination to which a national culture would
otherwise succumb.
A complete exposition of this composite type of
nationality and polity, such as stands to the credit of
India as her special achievement, must wait for another
opportunity and occasion. But, in passing, we may as
well broadly indicate the lines of its actual operation,
and also of its possibilities as an instrument for the
unification of the human race or the federation of man.
The principles of the Indian political constructions tend
naturally, as a closer analysis will show, to reconcile the
conflicting claims, and ideals of Nationalism and
Internationalism in a stable synthesis towards which the
League of Nations is hopelessly striving. The relations
obtaining within the State between the central authority
and the constituent groups on which depend so largely
its internal order and peace, form the plan and pattern
of its external relations also. Comparative politics,
indeed, point to a kind of correspondence between the
principles governing the internal constitution of States
and the principles governing their external expansion.
The intra-State and the inter-State relations are
fundamentally of the same type. The State that is of a
central type, and thus absorbs the original and
originating groups in its own unitary life, will also exhibit
the same militarist spirit of domination and aggression
in its movement of expansion by absorbing other States.
Similarly, the expansion or extension of the Indian State
will not be a process of absorption by assimilation or
extermination of external States, neighbourly or rival,
but will be governed by those principles, already
referred to, which regulate the internal constitution of
the State itself in relation to its constituent groups.
Those are the principles of a generous comprehension
that broaden the basis of an inter-State convention
under which all subject peoples are established in their
own conventions and all subject States in their own
constitution or customary law.
The problems before the League of Nations, of
reconciling the self-determination of individual sovereign
States with the interests of the collective brotherhood of
all the States, will defy solution under the militarist and
unitary principles of political formation, such as we meet
with in the West, but they are amenable to the other
method of comprehension which has been explained as
the basic principle of the Indian type of State in both its
internal and external relations. It is hoped that the
Indian experiment in Nationality which seeks, and is
called upon, to unify different ethnic stocks and
cultures, different systems of law and cult, different
groups and corporations, in an all-embracing and allcomprehensive polity, will be found to be a muchneeded guide in our progress towards that ‘far-off divine
event to which the whole creation moves,’ peace on
earth and goodwill among men.
This conclusion must be read over and over to truly
appreciate Mookerji’s deep and penetrative understanding
of the nature of a civilisation and the role of the State in a
civilisational society. Today, when the concept of a
civilisation-state is being casually thrown around as a
cosmetic talking point, Mookerji’s views are an educative
read from an application perspective.
First, when he calls Bharat more of a cultural possession
than a material one, Mookerji strikes a clear distinction
between the territorial nationalism of the European
coloniser and the cultural veneration of the Indic native. It is
this cultural veneration and a sense of relational
custodianship, to put it in the language of decoloniality, as
opposed to a sense of territorial ownership, that has made it
possible for Bharat to be a melting pot of diverse sects that
have coexisted within the Dharmic fold. This is precisely
what separates the Indic civilisational worldview from those
that drive Middle Eastern and European colonialities, which
are founded on the firm belief of domination or annihilation
of identities that do not conform to their own, and that they
have been divinely ordained to expand territorially in the
service of their respective belief systems.
As long as this divergence and incompatibility remain,
Indic civilisational consciousness has no option but to
approach both colonialities with a sense of justified
circumspection and vigilance given their respective histories
in Bharat and in the rest of the world. In fact, I would go to
the extent of stating that since Bharat is the only natural
homeland for the Indic consciousness, the Indian State has
the civilisational duty to ensure that this space remains as
such, and the accommodation of any other consciousness is
contingent on (a) respect for the undeniable and
inseparable relationship between Bharat and the Indic
consciousness and (b) giving up those tenets that
dehumanise the Indic consciousness or call for its
extermination, whether scripturally sanctioned or not.
Second, inherent in the treatment of Bharat as a cultural
possession as opposed to a material one is the respect for,
nay deification of its geographical features. The retention of
this relational land ontology as part of Bharat’s mindset is
critical for the preservation of its indigenous consciousness.
This affects its political approach to its geography and
borders as much as it affects its approach to what
constitutes ‘development’. This would translate to the
principle that no part of this sacred geography must be
tested solely on the anvils of its utility as a natural resource.
To this culturally rooted perspective, it does not make a
difference whether ‘even a blade of grass’ grows or not, or
whether a particular part of this geography is ‘useless
uninhabitable land’. That such words were used by the first
prime minister of Bharat, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1962 to
describe a part of this sacred geography, and that too in the
backdrop of Chinese aggression, is a reflection of how far
removed Bharat was even in 1962 from its cultural spirit of
veneration and deification of all parts of its geography to
instead employ a cold, downright utilitarian and territorial
approach. In my opinion, that every inch of this land is
sacred and its sanctity is inviolable is a greater driving force
in preserving its integrity than the mercantile territorial
European approach that appears to have seeped into
Bharat’s consciousness over time.
This subversion of the Indic perspective is equally
reflected in the manner in which Bharat treats its geography
on issues of development. The civilisational logic behind
treatment of ecologically fragile or sensitive areas as sacred
pilgrimage spots appears to have been completely lost on
the ‘modern’ Indian State. This is because the State seems
obsessed with ‘religious tourism’ and ‘ecotourism’, with
diminishing respect for the fundamental matrix of nature,
faith and patriotism that informs and makes this civilisation.
Critically, this matrix includes respect for the rights of nonhumans and their habitat. Bharat’s civilisation is not one
that reduces nature to just another branch of study, namely
‘environmentalism’, to be ticked off as just another box in
an environmental impact assessment checklist. Instead, it
puts nature right at the heart of its worldview and sees
divinity in every aspect, form and manifestation of nature.
From such lofty heights that directly affected ecological
balance, and therefore survival, for this civilisation to now
put development and nature in two different baskets with
the former being treated as the priority, is the clearest
reflection of the pervasion of colonial consciousness.
Pointing this out may invite labels, such as ‘tree hugger’,
‘luddite’ or being ‘anti-development’, but all of these are
terms typically used in the West, thereby exposing the
coloniality even in the reactions. In other words, neither is
the contemporary position on development indigenous nor
is the response to those who oppose colonialised
development. The absence of indigeneity could not have
been starker.
In my opinion, this attitude is not limited to any particular
dispensation,
notwithstanding
public
professions
of
commitment to the consciousness of this land, the
difference being only in intent and degree. While one
dispensation may actively promote coloniality because it
sees nothing of value in the past and has effectively
surrendered indigenous agency at the feet of either or both
colonialities, the other may see some value in native
consciousness and yet suffer from unconscious coloniality.
Also, the degree of coloniality varies in different spheres
depending on exposure, exigency and expediency. That
said, it would be unfair to draw false symmetries between
dispensations
because
the
dispensation
and
the
establishment that presided over the formative years of
independent Bharat must necessarily assume the primary
responsibility for the entrenched coloniality at the level of
the society. Critically, this entrenchment was facilitated by
continuing with colonial education that has played a
significant role in colonialising successive generations, and
it is not an easy task by any standard to reverse the
damage already done.
Further, apart from the apparatus of the State, the
indigenous society of Bharat too must take some measure
of responsibility for leaving matters of culture and
civilisation entirely to the State, which goes against the
grain of its civilisational thinking. In the process, over the
decades, Bharat’s indigenous society has ceded its
institutional independence and capabilities at the feet of the
State. As a consequence, it now finds itself deprived of
means of self-reliance and at the mercy of a State that, for
the most part, has pandered to the very colonialities whose
animus towards Indic consciousness is a matter of historical
fact. Therefore, notwithstanding the time, effort and
resources that may be required, decoloniality is an
existential
civilisational
imperative
that
must
be
undertaken, at the very least in the critical realms of nature,
knowledge and faith (which are interconnected), history,
education, development and the law in order for the society
to reflect its civilisational consciousness in its future
electoral priorities, choices and policies.
Third, from the perspective of treatment of various subidentities that form part of the larger Indic civilisational
fabric, recognition of the federal character of this civilisation
is critical from the perspective of formulation of law and
policy, which have a bearing on the sub-identities and their
relationship with the whole. This is particularly relevant in
the realms of faith, history, production of knowledge,
education, language and preservation of ways of life,
including personal laws. Therefore, when ‘uniformity’ in any
realm, including and especially in civil law, is the subject of
deliberation, the federal character of this civilisation and the
reasons for its survival must be borne in mind before
resorting to a European-style ‘national’ treatment of a
federal civilisation. At least in the context of Bharat, the
whole is as strong as its parts and the survival of the parts is
contingent on the existence of the whole. Preserving this
balance is easier said than done but as long as the State is
committed to preserving this balance and is also seen as
being committed to it, it would be keeping intact the
civilisational, political and territorial integrity of Bharat by
protecting it against centrifugal impulses, either homegrown
or external.
To this end, Mookerji underscores two important aspects
that are rarely understood in contemporary Bharat given its
preoccupation with the rule of law as understood by the
European coloniser. Mookerji makes it abundantly clear that
one of the direct consequences of existing as a federal
civilisation is the recognition that law must be significantly
informed by the practices and experiences of the
community that is the subject of a legislative measure. The
realisation that custom and practice have more wisdom and
utility in a society that is civilisationally diverse is the reason
laws in ancient Bharat were not top-down impositions by the
ruler, but were, more often than not, codifications of the
collective experience of a society as long as relevant. In that
sense, Mookerji alludes to the fact that perhaps the Smritis
were more descriptive than prescriptive and a similar
approach in contemporary Bharat may serve the cause of
‘law and order’. This would also mean that sitting in
judgement over the Smritis by treating them as prescriptive
injunctions or mandates in the sense law is understood by
the European makes very little sense since the colonial and
Indic understanding of law is starkly different. The
decentralisation and federalisation of the process of
lawmaking by turning it into a more organic process that
has its pulse on the society is one of the biggest takeaways
from Mookerji’s thoughts. His cautionary note against
treating Bharat as a unitary nation-state stripped of its
Dharmic federal character warrants serious consideration in
the corridors of power regardless of who wields it and
whatever their stated ideological persuasions may be.
Fourth, the existential importance of preserving this
decentralised and bottom-up approach has been captured
with scintillating clarity by Mookerji. Apart from custombased evolution of laws, he also highlights the fact that
Bharat has typically put faith in the society’s freedom and
duty to establish institutions that are independent of the
State in order to protect and preserve those values which
the society holds dear. In other words, the State was
expected to create conditions that were conducive to the
establishment of institutions that could capably address the
society’s needs and defend its interests vis-à-vis the State.
The creation of such institutions that maintained an arm’s
length distance from the State allowed the core of the Indic
society to remain largely untouched by the disruption of the
State apparatus due to repeated Islamic invasions or
systematic European Christian colonisation. Unfortunately,
these are the very same societal groupings, structures and
institutions that have suffered the most in independent
‘modern’ India since both the Indian State and the
indigenous society have taken forward the sanctimony and
judgement of the European coloniser with the zeal of a new
convert with respect to Bharat’s past, resulting in the
weakening or destruction of those structures that kept the
Indic ways of life alive through the ravages of time and
history.
The irony is that, as opposed to appreciating the value of
such systems which were independent of the State, every
such system (including civilisational nerve centres, such as
places of worship) has been brought under the looming
shadow of the State in ‘modern’ India. In the process, the
Indic society has been left entirely dependent on the State
for preservation of its core interests, while the State
continues speeding down the path of greater colonialisation
(not colonisation) while paying lip service to Bharat as a
civilisational State. This poses a serious and existential
challenge to the long-term survival of the Indic
consciousness since those worldviews which have
historically displayed a marked inability to peacefully
coexist with the Indic consciousness have been afforded
greater freedom to preserve their societal groupings and
institutions with almost no interference by the Indian State,
ostensibly in the name of advancement of the rights of
‘minorities’. As a consequence, the Indic civilisational
worldview finds itself disempowered in its own homeland
despite decolonisation. Perhaps, no other country is in such
a dire need of decoloniality as Bharat given the
stepmotherly treatment the Indian State metes out to the
adherents of its native consciousness.
Fifth, and I expect to raise quite a few hackles with this
point—in a civilisation-state, the core unit is not the
individual, instead it is the group, rather groups. The logic
behind this position is that a European-style nation-state is
built on the premise of a ‘nation’, that is, people bound by
one or more factors, such as language, faith or ethnicity.
Given the internal homogeneity of a European nation-state,
it makes sense and is perhaps more desirable to treat the
individual as the core unit whose rights must be
safeguarded against intrusion by the State and other
individuals. However, in a civilisation-state, every group is
rightly interested in protecting its own identity from
encroachment by other groups as well as by the State. Such
being the case, to claim on the one hand that Bharat is a
civilisation-state and to argue on the other that individual
rights must remain supreme in a civilisation-state are
logically, historically and constitutionally incongruent
assertions whose impracticality, coloniality and naiveté are
writ large on the face of it. Only a mind thoroughly dyed in
Eurocentric/Western-normative ideas on individual rights
while paying lip service to Bharat being a civilisation-state,
is capable of missing the whole point of a civilisation-state
by light years by treating the individual as the core of a
civilisational society.
I must clarify that I do not mean for a moment that the
individual has no rights in a civilisation-state, or that in all
circumstances and in every conceivable situation the
individual’s right must give way to the group’s interests.
However, it is certainly my case that where the individual’s
whim is couched as a right and has the effect of adversely
affecting the interests of the group, or the interests of other
groups, or the civilisational interest, the individual’s right
must necessarily be traded off against the greater good.
Even Europe and the West are beginning to see the light of
this position given their ongoing tryst with ‘multiculturalism’
and its impact on European ‘national’ identities.
Apart from this, it is my considered position that in the
context of Bharat, given its history, which has seen the Indic
consciousness being subjected to subjugation at an
unparalleled scale, the Indic civilisational worldview can
only be protected by recognising its group identities and
rights. This position is even more applicable in light of the
continued demonisation of Bharat by both Middle Eastern
and European colonialities, both within and outside Bharat.
That this is a question of survival, is certainly not a farfetched or remotely alarmist position to take since the
history of the last 1,300 years speaks volumes for those
who are willing to listen and act with honesty and integrity.
If this position invites criticisms of being illiberal, it only
demonstrates that liberalism has been weaponised to
further the ends of coloniality or it is fundamentally colonial,
which is perhaps the case. In either case, it is detrimental to
indigenous identities. Therefore, decoloniality must confront
it head-on since the goals of decoloniality are far more
important for indigenous consciousness and, dare I say, the
entire world, than the goals of liberalism.
Sixth, Mookerji holds up the Indic civilisational experience
as a template worthy of emulation by the rest of the world,
both from the perspective of inter- and intra-State relations
since Bharat follows the path of accommodation as opposed
to assimilation. The former is the approach of a civilisation
whereas the latter is the approach of a Europeanised nationstate. That said, while Bharat has certainly accommodated
cultures and OET systems whose centres of consciousness
are outside its sacred geography, such accommodation has
been contingent on such cultures not seeking to annihilate
Bharat’s indigenous civilisation. Simply put, as long as a
non-Indic worldview is capable of coexistence with Bharat’s
indigenous worldview and does not seek to deny or sever
the bonds that tie this land to its culture and its adherents,
Bharat provides refuge and shelter to even such worldviews.
After all, there are credible instances of groups whose OETs
are diametrically opposite to that of Bharat’s, and have yet
thrived in Bharat without persecution or loss of their
individuality. This is attributable to the fact that they put
aside some of their scriptural mandates in the larger
interest of coexistence and with a spirit of gratitude towards
Bharat’s welcoming nature. This is evident from Bharat’s
provision of refuge to the Jews and Zoroastrians after they
were driven out of their respective homelands by preChristian European imperialism and Middle Eastern
colonialism respectively.
According to Mookerji, the lesson that Bharat’s internal
experience as a civilisation holds for the rest of the world is
that no sovereign power must attempt to impose its values
on others, despite its best intentions. So long as
international politics is driven by Westphalian nation-state
values that contain the seeds of secularised Christian
European expansionism and a marked intolerant tolerance
for other worldviews, no international body will succeed in
securing peace for the world since international law and
institutions rest on the universalisation of European
provincialism. Conflict is writ large in such an approach. This
is precisely why Mookerji was of the view that Bharat’s lived
experience as a federal civilisation may serve as a beacon
of hope for the rest of the world.
And seventh, no part of Mookerji’s views on Bharat’s
civilisational character or the reasons for its fundamental
unity rest on the premise of ethnocentrism. In fact, the
emphasis on cultural unity is a direct refutation of any
accusation of ethnocentrism. Even in responding to the
European coloniser’s contention that Bharat was never a
‘nation’, Mookerji does not feel the need to prove that we
are a nation bound by a single ethnicity or language or
‘religion’ in the Christian sense. Instead, his calm response
is the rejection of European nationhood as a yardstick for
Bharat to pass muster on, and the emphasis on federal
civilisationalism as the appropriate lens to understand
Bharat. While Mookerji managed to convince a good crosssection of Europeans of his time, the unfortunate
contemporary reality is that colonialised Indians still
subscribe to colonial assumptions about Bharat and conflate
Bharat’s cultural unity with ethnocentrism and xenophobia,
which demonstrates the internalisation of colonial
ethnocentrism and the acceptance of its universal validity.
What is more is that Mookerji was not alone in his views; his
position on the civilisational character of Bharat, its cultural
unity and the causal factors for the same were echoed by
yet another stalwart, Jadunath Sarkar, in his book India
through the Ages (1928).25 Following are a few relevant
extracts:
The Indian People form one common and distinct type
No careful student of our history can help being struck
by one supreme vital characteristic of the Indian people.
It is their vitality as a distinct type, with a distinct
civilisation of their own and a mind as active after
centuries of foreign rule as ever in the past. The Indian
people of today are no doubt a composite ethnical
product; but whatever their different constituent
elements may have been in origin, they have all
acquired a common Indian stamp, and have all been
contributing to a common culture and building up a
common type of traditions, thought and literature. Even
Sir Herbert Risley, who is so sceptical about the Indians’
claim to be considered as one people, has been forced
to admit that ‘Beneath the manifold diversity of physical
and social type, language, custom and religion, which
strikes the observer in India, there can still be discerned
a certain “underlying uniformity of life from the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin”. There is in fact an Indian
character, a general Indian personality, which we cannot
resolve into its component elements.’ (People of India,
2nd ed., p. 299).
This common Indian type has stood the test of time, it
has outlived the shock of dynastic revolutions, foreign
invasions, religious conflicts, and widespread natural
disasters. Its best right to live is the vital power
displayed by it through many thousand years of
cataclysmic change in our land.
Sarkar further identifies the ‘agencies’ that united Bharat
despite its physical and human diversities and led to the
evolution of a common culture. According to him:
From early Hindu times, this internal isolation was often
broken and a pan-Indian community of ideas, customs
and culture was created by certain agencies. These
were: (i) the pilgrim-student, (ii) the soldier of fortune,
(iii) the imperial conqueror, and (iv) the son-in-law
imported from the centres of blue blood (such as,
Kanauj or Prayag for Brahmans and Mewar and Marwar
in the case of Kshatriyas) for the purpose of hypergamy
or raising the social status of a rich man settled among
lower castes in a far-off province.
The great holy cities of the different provinces were
regarded as sources of sanctity by all Indians alike. They
were, besides, seats of the highest Sanskrit learning, or
universities of the type of the medieval university of
Paris. Such were Benares and Nalanda, Mathura and
Taxila, Ujjaini and Prayag, Kanchi and Madura, and to a
lesser extent Navadwip in Bengal. The sacred streams
and temples of the north were looked upon with
veneration and lifelong yearning to visit them, by the
men of the south, and in the same way, Puri and Kanchi,
Setubandha and Sringeri, Dwaraka and Nasik were
eagerly visited by devoted pilgrims from the north of
India, in spite of the immense distances to be crossed.
Furthermore, for the benefit of those who could not
travel, some local rivers and cities of the south were
named after those of the north and regarded as equally
sanctifying. Thus Madura is the southern Mathura, and
the Godavari is the southern Ganges, Ganga Godavari.
Great Sanskrit scholars and saints, like Shankaracharya
and Chaitanya, have passed from one end of Hindu
India to another, everywhere conquering their rivals in
disputation, as Samudragupta and other kings bent on
dig-vijaya did in arms. This presupposed cultural
uniformity.
Not only do Sarkar’s views on Bharat’s civilisation broadly
resonate with those of Mookerji, the views of both these
scholars were broadly reflected in An Advanced History of
India (1946) jointly authored by R.C. Majumdar, H.C.
Raychaudhuri and Kalikinkar Datta,26 and again in
Majumdar’s Ancient India (1952).27 It can be safely said on
the authority of such scholars that around the time of the
freedom movement, there was a significant chorus of Indic
scholars proclaiming the civilisational status of Bharat to lay
the foundations for its independent statehood. This could
plausibly explain the reference to ‘ancient land’ in the
Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly
as well as the adoption of Bharat in Article 1 of the
Constitution.
To me, what is astounding is the dignity, poise and clarity
with which scholars, such as Sarda, Mookerji, Sarkar and
Majumdar, and their contemporaries presented their views
on the antiquity and achievements of the Indic civilisation in
the face of colonial hubris. To illustrate the atmospherics of
the period, one need not look beyond a 21-page paper titled
‘The Origins of Indian Nationalism According to Native
Writers’ authored by Bruce T. McCully, an American
professor of history, in 1935, which was published in The
Journal of Modern History.28 The stated object of the study
was ‘to determine the origins of Indian nationalism as
indicated in the works of native writers’. However, McCully’s
Eurocentrism reveals itself through his language that reeks
of sheer condescension and contempt for the works of
Mookerji and other ‘native’ voices, and is best captured in
his own words:
The attempt to interpret the unity of ancient India in
terms of religion and culture, aside from the
improbability of this theory in the light of historical
research, appears to be more in the nature of a
rationalisation to support the contention that India has
always possessed certain of the component elements of
nationality than an explanation of the origins of
nationalism. …
…. With their somewhat romantic attachment to the
past glories of India in contrast to the despised present,
these writers seem to invite criticism by their cavalier
disregard for the evidences of history.... Far more
weighty in number, diversity, and value are the writings
which attribute the origins of Indian nationalism to the
influences, on the whole beneficent, flowing into India
as a consequence of British rule.
…. The evidence indicates that an overwhelming
majority of the writings examined prefer the latter
thesis, thereby inclining to admit that Indian nationalism
is not of indigenous origin but exotic, implanted not by
native but by foreign hands, and germinating only under
conditions and influences supplied by a foreign nation
and people. It is equally apparent that a majority of the
writers believe that the British supplied not only
environmental and other factors necessary to evoke a
national consciousness in India, but also the germ in the
form of the nation-idea which they acknowledge to have
been originally entirely foreign to the Indian mind.
The evidence further demonstrates that at least a few
of the writers have perceived the profound significance
upon the origins of the movement of socialising
agencies carried into the land by the British; it seems to
suggest that in the course of time Indian writers and
commentators will tend increasingly to emphasise the
influence of the British-born institutions which have
tended to bear upon every part of the social fabric,
rather than those institutions having a strictly political
character.
Sadly, McCully’s prognosis of the future was prophetic since,
to me, it certainly seems that in contemporary Bharat there
are more voices, even among ‘experts’, which endorse and
echo McCully’s views on Bharat’s history than those that
subscribe to the Indic school of thought. Clearly, the study
of history and its representation is not as neutral and
objective as is often made out to be. The irony is that the
colonial consciousness of the Indian mind is best captured
by the fact that the very same views expressed by Sarda,
Mookerji, Sarkar and Majumdar and others29 on the
civilisational character of Bharat30 and its cultural unity31 are
welcomed and received with a lot more enthusiasm when a
book titled India: A Sacred Geography is written by Diana L.
Eck.32 Perhaps, the colonial consciousness of the Indian mind
is put at ease by the fact that a white Westerner, and that
too a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at
Harvard University, has recognised the sacred nature of
Bharat’s geography and appropriately caveated her position
with standard-issue expressions of the fear of her work
feeding the ‘fervor of an exclusive new Hindu nationalism’.
Since all the right boxes have been ticked in the mind of the
colonialised Indian, both the messenger and the message
are kosher or halal.
In a nutshell, there are typically only two acceptable
choices for those who wish to understand Bharat’s history—
they must either subscribe to that school of thought which
denies Bharat’s antiquity, unity and Indic consciousness, or
accept the view which recognises the validity of Bharat’s
indigenous OET, with the caveat that ‘Hindu nationalism’
must be exorcised from the Indian mind. And preferably,
voices belonging to either school must not be Indian, and if
they are Indian or of Indian origin, their credentials must be
certified and validated by Western academia. There is a
dearth of schools of thought or voices, Indian or not, rooted
in Bharat’s indigenous OET that calmly assert the right of
Indic consciousness to reclaim its space, both physical and
mental, because they have the consequence of ‘othering’
Middle Eastern and European colonialities. That such
assertion, crudely and simplistically dubbed as ‘Hindu
nationalism’, is, in fact, an Indic civilisational and decolonial
reawakening, somehow never occurs to those who crinkle
their noses at it. Simply put, it is the expression of the
decolonial urge of the silenced and long-silent native to
reclaim and re-exist. When this expression is pejoratively
and phobically caricatured as ‘Hindu nationalism’, the only
logical inference that can be drawn is that every other
culture and society has the right to exercise the decolonial
option, except Bharat. In other words, if Bharat had
converted to the religion of either coloniality, it would have
been acceptable for it to bemoan its past applying primarily
the racial filter like the Americas or Africa, but since it has
clawed and retained its native OET systems, its attempts at
decoloniality are conveniently labelled ‘Hindu nationalism’,
which endangers the safety of ‘national minorities’—spaces
forcibly or fraudulently carved out by Middle Eastern and
European colonialities at the expense of and to the
detriment of Bharat’s native consciousness.
If this is not a textbook case of furthering two expansionist
colonialities to the detriment of Bharat’s native
consciousness, I do not know what is. This is precisely why I
reiterate that it is my considered position that in the interest
of its survival, Bharat must employ the decolonial option,
failing which its history and consciousness will always be
forced to seek the validation of the very same colonialities
that have historically displayed a fundamental antipathy to
the very existence of the Indic consciousness. If Bharat’s
native consciousness never gets to tell its story the way it
has experienced it, not only will the world, including
Bharatiyas, never know what Bharat has been subjected to,
it will also amount to a monumental failure to memorialise
its colonisation and colonialisation. This is the key to
preventing similar or worse colonisation, whether ongoing or
potential. After all, the survival of a consciousness is
inextricably connected to its ability to remember the good,
the bad and the ugly, and pass on that memory to future
generations. Therefore, decoloniality in Bharat’s context is
not only an attempt to reclaim its fundamental right to
agency to define itself but also includes the right to transmit
its lived experience on its own terms and using its own
lexicon, in order to stave off a worse fate, which is reflected
by the constantly shrinking size of its sacred geography.
Having discussed Bharat’s federal civilisational character,
its central constituents and broadly outlined the framework
of a civilisation-state, in the next chapter I will place before
the reader the coloniality manifest in the treatment of this
civilisation and its indigeneity by the White European
Christian coloniser, including the impact of the application
of the standards of ethnocentric ‘nationhood’ on the Indic
consciousness.
8
European Coloniality and the
Indic Civilisation
Missionaries travelling in India
‘When the Missionaries in Heathen countries find that the people will not come
to them to be taught, they go and look after the people. In this picture you see
two Missionaries, who are travelling in India from place to place, where they
think they shall find people to listen to their teaching.’ - The Wesleyan Juvenile
Offering, December 1860 (published by Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society).
This chapter and the following one are intended to enable
the reader to draw parallels between the global and the
Indian experiences with coloniality, through an examination
of the impact of coloniality on Bharat’s indigenous OET
systems and social structures. The objective is to broadly
lay out the politico-legal, religious and social infrastructure
established by the European coloniser in the backdrop of
which Bharat’s constitutional journey up until the year 1919
must be understood, so as to assess whether it was
influenced by colonial perceptions of the Indic civilisation.
I must clarify that when I speak of the European coloniser,
my focus is limited to the British, given that they had
greater success than any other European nation in
colonising Bharat in terms of the expanse of the territory
under their control, the longevity of their colonisation, the
institutions established, the fact that Bharat secured its
independence from Britain, and their continuing impact on
the consciousness of Bharat. Also, despite the distinct
nationalities of European colonisers and the critical
distinctions in their administration as well as their politicolegal theories, I have consciously proceeded on the
established premise that European coloniality cut across
European national identities.
Given these considered caveats on the scope and nature
of my discussion, in this section I will place before the
reader the material drawn from watershed legislations
enacted by the British Parliament in relation to Bharat until
1853, which include legislative debates that shed light on
the coloniality, that informed their understanding of Bharat
and influenced their laws and policies. Alongside this
legislative material, I will also present to the reader a
snapshot of the scholarly work on the colonial reshaping of
Bharat’s indigenous OET systems, societal structures and
social practices. As the material shall demonstrate, this
colonial exercise resulted in either distortion of indigenous
identities or creation of new ones by the coloniser to further
his goals which were not purely political or ‘secular’ in
character.
The Company, the Crown, Coloniality and Civilisation
On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a Charter
of incorporation to the Governor and Company of Merchants
of London, better known to the world as the English East
India Company (‘the Company’).1 The Company was founded
to establish direct trade relations with Bharat, which was
necessitated, among other things, by the fear that if the
English did not show the initiative, the Dutch would replace
the stranglehold of the Spanish over trade in the East. In a
way, the founding of the Company can be traced to the
events triggered by the Inter Caetera, the Papal Bull of 1493
issued by Pope Alexander VI, which is referred to in Chapter
2.
Under the terms of the Bull, which bound Spain and
Portugal, Bharat fell within the non-Christian territories
earmarked for colonisation, enslavement and evangelisation
by Portugal. Subsequently, in 1580, the rights of Portugal
over Indian territories were assigned to Spain as the latter’s
sovereignty extended to Portugal. However, since the
Protestant Reformation had undermined the authority of the
Catholic Church and the Pope, one of the consequences was
the revolt of the Dutch against the Spanish, which resulted
in the loss of Spain’s monopoly over trade in the East,
particularly in Java, between 1595 and 1599. Fearing Dutch
monopoly over eastern trade, the English East India
Company was established. It is clear from this sequence of
events that Bharat’s colonisation by Europe was not
uninfluenced by the Protestant Reformation.
Ostensibly, the Company was incorporated to establish
trading posts in Bharat with the permission of the latter’s
local rulers, and therefore, the Company was not vested
with sovereign powers. The Charter of 1600 issued by the
British Crown to the Company, which gave the latter a
juristic persona and commercial privileges, such as the
exclusive right to trade in the territories identified therein,
cloaked the Crown with jurisdiction over the Company and
its members. The term of the Charter was originally 15
years, which was renewable at the prerogative of the Crown.
The idea behind the grant of such exclusive rights to the
Company was to equip it to better compete with other
European nations without having to face internal
competition from Britain. Effectively, the stage was set for a
face-off between the English East India Company and the
Dutch East Indies Company.2 The torture and execution of
employees of the English Company by the Dutch in 1623 in
Java (known as the Amboyna Massacre), along with other
factors, resulted in the presence of the English Company
being largely limited to Bharat. This, in turn, led to the
consolidation of British presence in Bharat over the years—
at first it was trading posts, followed by the construction and
ownership of forts for the security of the Company’s
factories and employees.3
While it is typically assumed that the Company, as a
commercial entity, had no ‘civilising’ interest in aiding the
spread of Christianity in Bharat, there is evidence to suggest
the contrary. For instance, in 1614, the Company put in
place measures ‘for the recruitment of Indians for the
propagation of the Gospel among their countrymen and for
imparting to these missionaries such education, at the
Company’s expense, as would enable them to carry out
effectively the purposes for which they were enlisted’.4
Further, in 1659, the directors of the Company were clear
that it was ‘their earnest desire by all possible means to
spread Christianity among the people of India’, which led to
missionaries being allowed to travel to Bharat on the
Company’s ships.5
With the cession of Bombay by Portugal to the British
Crown in 1661 and the grant of authority over Bombay by
the Crown to the Company in 1668, the Company gradually
began to move beyond its commercial role towards
assumption of political authority. However, it would be a
while before the British Parliament recognised this
transition. This is notwithstanding the fact that by the
1680s, the Company was seen as an instrument for the
creation of a British Empire in Bharat, which resulted in the
Charter of 1683, giving the Company the complete powers
to ‘declare and make peace and war with any of the
heathen nations of Asia, Africa and America within the
charter limits, to raise, arm, train, and muster such military
forces as seemed requisite and necessary, and to execute
martial law for the defence of their forts, places, and
plantations against foreign invasion or domestic insurrection
or rebellion’ [emphasis added].6
The reference to ‘heathen’ nations, meaning non-Christian
nations, is an indication of the religious consciousness of the
British coloniser. Further, the Charter of 1683 made it clear
that any sovereign powers that the Company may acquire
over the territories of Asia, Africa and America, was on
behalf of the Crown. Critically, the Company was
empowered to set up Admiralty Courts to enforce rights
relatable to the Charter, which further deepened its roots.
By 1686, the Company was permitted to frame a municipal
constitution for Madras. Effectively, in less than 90 years of
its entry into Bharat as a trading entity, the Company had
managed to establish a framework that had the trappings of
a sovereign power.7
That the Company was the product of coloniality and the
Christian consciousness of the British Crown was established
in judicial proceedings in 1683, when it brought an action
against another English trader, Thomas Sandys, for directly
trading with India in violation of the exclusive rights granted
to it by the Crown under the Charter.8 Among the reasons
spelt out by the King’s Bench of the England and Wales
Court for upholding the legal validity of the Company’s
action against Sandys under the Charter, one was that the
King, as a good Christian, ought to be and was deemed to
be at war with ‘infidels’ forever, which applied equally to all
his subjects. Therefore, as the defender of the Christian
faith, it fell within the scope of his prerogative to relax this
‘normal rule’ for his subjects or a for a class of them if he so
deemed fit, and only such beneficiaries of the relaxation
would be allowed to trade with the ‘enemy’, that is, the
infidel.9 It was not permissible for other subjects to trade
with the enemy unless they were directly permitted by the
King or were licensed to do so by the Company. Therefore,
for all practical purposes, the Charter issued in favour of the
Company had a distinct and express Christian colonial
character, since it was bound by such rules of conduct
regarding commerce with ‘infidels’10 that were consistent
with those of the Christian faith.11
However, in the following years, there was a marked
increase in the chorus of English traders who expressed
serious displeasure at the exclusive munificence enjoyed by
the Company. This, coupled with the Company’s own
arrogant attitude, led to the House of Commons passing a
resolution to the effect that ‘all the subjects of England have
equal right to trade to the East Indies unless prohibited by
Act of Parliament’, which strengthened the position of the
opponents of the Company. To cut a long story short, the
opponents managed to secure permission for the
establishment of a parallel company through the Charter of
5 September 1698, by the name of ‘English Company
Trading to the East Indies’12, despite the existence of the
earlier Charter in favour of the original entity. However, the
original Company became the single largest shareholder in
the new company and leveraged this position to negotiate
terms of coexistence with the new one. These terms were
captured in a tripartite agreement entered into by the two
entities and the Queen in July 1702. Under this agreement,
the original company would surrender its exclusive rights by
1709, until which time both companies would trade in the
name of the new amalgamated entity, renamed ‘The United
Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East
Indies’, whose affairs would be run jointly by representatives
of both. The new entity would operate under the Charter of
September 1698 for the remainder of the Charter’s term.
Thenceforth, all royal charters would be issued to the United
Company, which became the new East India Company.
Therefore, all references to the Company hereinafter are
references to this entity.
For the purposes of the discussion here, the Charter of
September 1698 is an important document, since it took
forward the colonial evangelical intent of both the Company
and the British Parliament in a limited yet concrete fashion
by specifically inserting what came to be known as ‘the
Missionary Clause’. This Clause required the Company to
maintain Christian clergy at their Indian factories and to
have chaplains on their ships which weighed 500 tons or
more.13 The clergy so appointed to reside in Bharat were
required to learn Portuguese within a year of being sent to
Bharat, and critically, were also obligated to learn the native
language of the country where they shall reside ‘to enable
them to instruct the Gentoos that shall be the servants or
slaves of the same Company or of their agents, in the
Protestant religion’. In other words, at the very least, the
Company was expected to spread the Gospel among its
Indian employees, which, in my opinion, is proof of intent to
‘civilise’ the native and was a clear indication of what was to
come in a more systematic fashion over the years.
By 1726, a royal charter was issued, which permitted the
Company to establish mayor’s courts in Madras, Bombay
and Calcutta. Further, appeals could be preferred from the
said courts to the governor and ultimately to the King, which
marked the integration of the legal infrastructure between
the colonies in India and the Crown. Between 1726 and
1773, thanks to victories of the Company in the Battles of
Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), coupled with the brazen
profiteering of the Company at the expense of the Indian
population during the Bengal famine of 1770—when a fifth
of Bengal’s population perished under the governorship of
Warren Hastings—it dawned upon the British Parliament that
the Company had long moved away from being a mere
commercial entity. The Company was seen for what it truly
was or had become—an extension of British sovereignty in
the East through delegation of powers reinforced by the
nature of monopoly enjoyed by it under the Charter.
This, along with the Company’s abysmal management of
its fiscal affairs, forced it to seek a bailout from the British
government, which provided the British Parliament with the
window it sought to impose fiscal discipline on the Company
and limit its political/sovereign powers. Accordingly, apart
from granting a loan of £1,400,000 at 4 per cent to the
Company along with a promise to suspend an outstanding
debt of £400,000 until the repayment of the new loan, a
ceiling of 6 percent was imposed on the dividend that could
be declared by the Company to its shareholders. Further,
the Company was required to submit itself to half-yearly
scrutiny by the Treasury. Critically, the Act ‘for establishing
certain Regulations for the better Management of the Affairs
of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe’,
also known as ‘the Regulating Act of 1773’ and later on as
the East India Company Act, was passed by the British
Parliament, which clipped the political wings of the
Company and allowed the Crown to spread its own.14 Apart
from consolidating the power structure in Bharat through
the creation of the office of Governor-General who would
preside over British territories in Bharat, with Fort William in
Bengal as the epicentre of British power, a Supreme Court of
Judicature was also established in Fort William to primarily
entertain legal actions against British subjects; Hastings was
appointed as the first Governor-General.15
The East India Company Act of 1784, popularly known as
Pitt’s India Act after the then British Prime Minister Willam
Pitt, built on the changes made in the 1773 Act and
introduced a dual system whereby the newly formed Board
of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, also known as the
Board
of
Control,
would
handle
the
non-
commercial/public/political activities of the Company,
whereas the directors of the Company would be limited to
handling its commercial affairs. The Board consisted of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Secretary of State, and four
privy councillors appointed by the King and holding office at
his pleasure. This effectively gave the British Parliament
greater control and leverage over the Company’s affairs, in
particular those which could have political ramifications.
Apart from this, the 1784 Act also introduced a raft of
measures that rendered the Company subordinate to the
Governor-General.
While the phrase ‘British Territories in India’ was not used
in the title of the 1773 or the 1784 Acts, it was used in the
1793 Act, which was called—‘An Act for continuing in the
East-India Company, for a further term, the possession of
the British Territories in India, together with their exclusive
Trade, under certain limitations; for establishing further
Regulations for the Government of the said Territories, and
the better administration of Justice within the same; for
appropriating to certain uses the Revenues and Profits of
the said Company; and for making provision for the good
order and government of the Towns of Calcutta, Madras and
Bombay’. The provisions of the 1793 Act also clearly
reflected the growing supremacy of the Crown over the
Company in matters of polity and sovereignty compared
with the previous Acts, which would reflect with greater
vigour in the Government of India Act of 1800 that
effectively proclaimed British sovereign control over
territories in Bharat. Under this Act, a Supreme Court of
Judicature was established in Fort Saint George in Madras on
the same lines as the Court in Fort Saint William in Calcutta.
By 1813, in the East India Company Act of the same year,
the Crown categorically spoke of its ‘undoubted sovereignty’
over the said territories and others. Critical to the discussion
at hand on coloniality of the British coloniser are the
provisions of the 1813 Act which related to ‘religion’,
‘morals’ and ‘education’. Reproduced herein below are the
relevant excerpts of Section 33 of the 1813 Act:
XXXIII: And whereas it is the duty of this country to
promote the interest and happiness of the native
inhabitants of the British dominions in India; and such
measures ought to be adopted as may tend to the
introduction among them of useful knowledge, and of
religious and moral improvement: and in furtherance of
the above objects, sufficient facilities ought to be
afforded by law to persons desirous of going to and
remaining in India, for the purpose of accomplishing
these benevolent designs, so as the authority of the
local government respecting the intercourse of
Europeans with the interior of the country to be
preserved, and the principles of the British Government,
on which the natives of India have hitherto relied for the
free exercise of their religion, be inviolably maintained:
and whereas it is expedient to make provision for
granting permission to persons desirous of going to and
remaining in India for the above purposes, and also to
persons desirous of going to and remaining there for
other lawful purposes;… [emphasis added].
This extract succinctly captures the British Christian policy
of toleration as discussed in Chapter 4.16 On the one hand, it
paid lip service to the right of the native inhabitants to
practise ‘their religion’ freely, while on the other, it spoke of
the ‘introduction’ of ‘useful knowledge’ to the natives and of
their ‘religious and moral improvement’. Further, the
provision spoke of extending all facilities needed to ‘persons
going and remaining in India’ for the accomplishment of the
‘benevolent designs’ of the Christian White European
coloniser. The coloniality of the coloniser is writ large in the
express language of the provision itself which envisaged the
civilising of the native through ‘religious and moral
improvement’.
The ‘persons’ who would remain in India for the
achievement of the said ‘benevolent’ designs were Christian
missionaries, and this becomes evident not only from the
literature17 but also from other provisions of the Act. Sections
49–54 of the Act provided an elaborate scheme for the
creation of a church establishment in the British Territories
in India with the appointment of one bishop and three
archdeacons for Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Further,
under Section 43, a sum of not less than a lakh of rupees
would be set apart annually ‘for the revival and
improvement of literature, and the encouragement of the
learned natives of India, and for the introduction and
promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the
inhabitants of the British Territories in India’ [emphasis
added], which underscores the colonial belief that the
sciences have European origins. Based on the provisions of
the 1813 Act, it could be reasonably inferred that the intent
of the Company as expressed in 1614 and 1659 to spread
Christianity among the people of Bharat, had formally
crystallised into the establishment of a Christian ecosystem
in Bharat under the mandate of the Crown and the British
Parliament.
The evangelical intent behind these provisions shines
through the debates that took place in the British Parliament
in relation to the 1813 Act, prior to its promulgation. In fact,
according to the literature, the unequivocal provision of
State support for the establishment and spread of
Christianity in Bharat, as reflected in the 1813 Act, was a
result of the persistent efforts of missionary groups for
several years.18 The conviction with which the case for
Christianity in Bharat was pitched is evident from the fact
that proponents of missionary work genuinely believed that
the improvement of the condition of the people of Bharat
was intimately bound to one essential prerequisite—
conversion to Christianity. The resistance of the Company to
increased missionary activity in Bharat until the 1813 Act
did not spring from the well of religious neutrality or
‘secularism’ as some would like to believe, but was merely
the product of mercantile pragmatism. There is no denying
that the issue had multiple layers with several parties
having divergent views and interests. That said, not a single
one of the different strains of these views was remotely
interested in non-interference with native faith systems out
of respect for their beliefs and practices.
To add to this mix, the tussle between the Church of
England, the official denomination of England, and
Protestant Dissenters turned Bharat into yet another
battleground
for
the
conflict
between
Christian
19
denominations.
The arrival of Dissenting Protestant
Missionaries, such as William Carey20 and John Thomas, in
Bengal in 1793, made matters worse, and by 1811 it was
feared even by the House of Lords that the rising number of
Protestant denominations in England would render the
Church of England a denominational minority. This led to
competitive evangelism, wherein each group tried to win
more converts for itself (‘soul harvesting’) to prove its
commitment to the gospel, with both groups agreeing on
the need for greater missionary activity in Bharat.21 This was
captured in the proposal put forth to the British Parliament
in 1811 by William Wilberforce,22 a British politician and
Protestant Christian, which required the Company to finance
missionary activities in its territories.23 This proposal was
defeated by both the Anglican Church and the Company for
their own reasons, the former fearing the growth of
Dissenting Protestantism and the latter being concerned
about missionary activity interfering with commerce by
alienating the native population. The Company’s reluctance
to institutionalise missionary activity was also partly owed
to the experience of the Vellore Mutiny in 1806, which
resulted in the death of 200 in a garrison of 370 due to a
revolt of Indian soldiers against their officers.24 The revolt
was triggered by apprehensions among the soldiers that the
Company was intent on converting them to Christianity by
force. Therefore, the Company had its own reasons for
partially staving off missionary activity at the levels sought
by pro-mission groups.
However, between 1811 and 1813, the chorus for greater
missionary activity in Bharat grew, and one of the reasons
marshalled as the pretext for it was the inadequacy of the
number of ministers of religion and chaplains in Bharat,
which supposedly had led to ‘grossly immoral behaviour’ on
the part of the Europeans. The blame for their immorality
was, of course, conveniently laid at the doors of the native
heathen population, which was deemed to be fundamentally
and inherently immoral. Therefore, while the excuse cited
was the growing European immorality in Bharat, the goal
was ultimately the conversion of Indians, who had to be
saved from their ignorance, darkness and devil-worshipping
ways. To support their case of inherent immorality of the
‘Hindoos’, Hindu beliefs and practices were demonised, as
evidenced by the propagandisation of the annual Shri
Jagannath Rath Yatra at Puri (Odisha), as a ‘dangerous cult’
and the brazen exaggeration of the prevalence of Sati.25 In
this regard, the writings of Claudius Buchanan,26 a Scottish
clergyman and a missionary, were extremely popular in
both England and America. In fact, he must be credited with
the corruption of the word ‘Jagannath’ to ‘juggernaut’ and
for using the Rath Yatra to portray Hinduism as a ‘bloody,
violent, superstitious and backward religious system’, which
had to be rendered extinct and replaced with the gospel. He
made the case for the ‘social reform’ of Bharat to his
audience in England which resonated greatly owing to the
popularity of Protestantism.
As the date for the renewal of the Company’s Charter in
1813 grew closer,27 more efforts were invested by Buchanan
and like-minded proponents to convince the British
Parliament on the need for State support of Christian
missionary efforts in Bharat. Buchanan managed to
convince a sizeable section of the British public and
lawmakers of the Company’s profiteering tendencies, which
contrasted against the Christian philanthropy of the
missionaries.28 Both Houses of the British Parliament
received hundreds of petitions from British Churches
fervently appealing for the ‘propagation of Christian
knowledge in India’.29
Circumstances were now ripe for William Wilberforce to
once again make his proposal; on 19 February 1813,30 he
presented a Petition to the British Parliament from the
Society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge,
which read as follows:
That the society was incorporated in the year 1709, by a
charter from her majesty queen Anne, for the farther
promoting of Christian knowledge and increase of piety
and virtue within Scotland, especially in the Highlands,
Islands, and remote conners thereof, and for
propagating the same in Popish and infidel parts of the
world [sic]; and that since that time, in consequence of
the donations and bequests of pious and benevolent
persons, the funds of the society have increased to a
considerable amount, and have been faithfully applied
to the purposes of the charter, agreeably to the will of
the donors; and that the labours of the society, by
means of their teachers, catechists, and missionaries,
have, it is well known, been attended with great success
in the education of youth, in furthering the interests of
religion and virtue, and in diffusing, both in Scotland and
America, the blessings of civilisation and industry,
subordination to lawful authority, and attachment to the
constitution and government of the British empire; and
that it appears to the petitioners, that the exertions of
the society can nowhere be employed more agreeably
to the object of the royal charter, or with greater
prospect of success, than in those territories and
provinces in India which now form a part of his Majesty’s
dominions; and that, while the natives of those
countries have long been and still continue in a state of
deplorable ignorance, and addicted to various idolatrous
and superstitious usages of the most degrading and
horrible description, many of our own countrymen,
members of the church of Scotland, employed in the
different civil and military departments in India, are
precluded from enjoying the ordinances of Christianity
agreeably to the forms of the Church to which they are
attached; and that, while the situation of India, destitute
of the means of religious instruction, has long presented
the most urgent claims to the humanity of Britons and
of Christians, the restrictions to which the intercourse
with those countries has hitherto been subjected, have
prevented attempts for affording them the relief which
the exigencies of their situation so imperiously required;
and praying the House to take into consideration the
facts which have been stated in this Petition, and to
provide, in any Bill that may be passed for renewing the
East India Company’s charter, that it shall be lawful for
the petitioners to impart the benefits of Christianity to
the natives of India, and to afford the advantages of
religious worship and instruction to our countrymen
members of the church of Scotland, who may reside in
that part of the British empire, subject always to such
salutary regulations as parliament in its wisdom shall
judge it necessary to establish [emphases added].
The contents of the Petition must be read closely and
carefully to understand the conviction of the Petitioners and
the number of layers it sheds light on that have
contemporary relevance. The petition reinforces the deeprooted Christian undergirding of European coloniality, a fact
that was directly responsible for its unshakeable belief in its
civilising global mission that has affected non-Christian
systems across the world—in this case, Indic OET systems. It
needs to be understood and acknowledged that the
stereotypes about Hinduism that Buchanan gave birth to in
the 1800s, which informed Wilberforce’s Petition to make a
case for missionary activity in Bharat, continue to
relentlessly hound the followers of Sanatana Dharma, both
in Bharat and in the West, though the West hypocritically
preaches diversity and toleration to the rest of the world.
Clearly, Christian OET has contributed substantially to the
creation of the white man’s saviour complex that has done
more harm than good to the world.
Wilberforce’s Petition is but an illustration of the dominant
view of British society of the time, which ultimately led to
the Company’s Charter being renewed with the imposition
of evangelical obligations. I use the word ‘dominant’ with
basis, since the proposal to impose such obligations won
with an overwhelming majority of 89 to 36 in the British
Parliament, with the other important consequence being
that the British government gained greater control over the
affairs of the Company as well as over Bharat. Effectively,
the insertion of the Missionary Clauses in the 1813 Act was
a milestone that led to feverish missionary activity in
Bharat. In the years that followed, both the Anglican Church
and Protestant denominations gained greater access to
Bharat with the patronage of the Company as mandated by
the British Parliament and the Crown. Frankly, this alone
obviates any need for further discussion on British
‘secularism’, since any government, especially a colonial
one, which approaches a colonised society with a civilising
mission based on a foreign theology that is premised on the
supposed barbarism and immorality of the latter’s faith and
worldview, cannot reasonably expect to be deemed
‘secular’, that is, devoid of any religious identity or
affiliation. On the contrary, its religious motivations could
not have been clearer. Notwithstanding this, to prove the
point further, just so that the 1813 Act is not dismissed as
an aberration, I will place more material drawn from the
subsequent Acts, legislative debates and the education cum
language policies put in place by the British administration
to further the manifestly Christian goals of European
coloniality.
For instance, the State patronage of Christianity and its
clergy in Bharat was made abundantly clear when the Indian
Bishops and Courts Act, 1823 was passed, which contained
both ‘secular’ and ‘non-secular/religious’ aspects. Not only
was this the legislation under which a Supreme Court of
Judicature in Bombay was established, it also provided for
payment of pensions to bishops and archdeacons who
served in Bharat. A more incongruous mix of the religious
and the secular cannot be found, but perhaps it did not
appear incongruous to the British coloniser since his
secularism was, after all, Christian secularism.
The impact of the Missionary Clause of the 1813 Act was
the initiation of the evangelical project of ‘reforming’ Bharat,
for which Buchanan’s and other missionaries’ work
demonising Bharat, its faith systems, traditions and society
in general, had laid the foundation.31 The Bengal Sati
Regulation of 1829 was a direct product of the movement
for ‘social reform’. In fact, Dr. Meenakshi Jain in her scholarly
work Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the
Changing Colonial Discourse32 has brilliantly captured the
direct nexus between the said law and the malicious
representation of Hindu society using Sati as the soapbox to
grandstand from in order to legitimise the civilising mission
of the Christian White European coloniser. She demonstrates
credibly in her book that the presence of Sati as a practice
was nowhere close to being as rampant as it was made out
to be by the missionaries to ‘shock and motivate the British
public and also garner funds at home for missionary work in
India’, apart from pushing for the inclusion of the Missionary
Clause in the 1813 Act.
She underscores the fact that it could not have been a
matter of mere coincidence that all the ‘ills’ of the Hindu
society were to be found in the vicinity of Calcutta or in
Bengal, which was the seat of British power and also that of
the Bishop in India at the time. Jain rightly argues that it was
possible for Sati to be addressed without demonising Hindus
and Hinduism—as evidenced by the approach of the Tagore
family33—and yet the goal of the missionaries in using Sati
as the springboard for their attacks on the faith of the Indic
heathen could not have been more obvious. I leave it to the
reader to ask themselves whether the approach of the
missionaries in the 1800s towards Hindu society, its faith,
culture and institutions is mirrored in contemporary
representations of Hindus and Hinduism, both by Hindus
themselves and others. If the answer is in the affirmative,
would it not be reasonable to conclude that this is due to
ingrained coloniality and colonialised versions of Bharat’s
worldview by successive generations of ‘natives’?
The next landmark legislation whose provisions as well as
the surrounding legislative debates leave nothing to the
imagination with respect to the evangelising nature of
British colonisation is the Government of India Act of 1833
passed in August 1833, also known as the Charter Act of
1833.34 This legislation officially cemented Britain’s
colonisation of Bharat as indicated by the following
observations:
1. Under Section 1 of the Act, all British Indian territories
would remain under the Company’s government in India
until 13 April 1854, and all property would be held by it
as a trustee of the Crown;
2. Under Section 2, all privileges enjoyed by the
Company would be in force only until April 1854;
3. Under Section 4, the Company was expected to
expeditiously close its commercial business after 22
April 1854 and sell its properties;
4. Under Section 25, the Board of Control would
thenceforth control all acts of the Company, which
removed the distinction between the political and
commercial activities of the company;
5. Under Section 39, a provision was made for the
Governor-General of India in Council, which would have
both legislative and executive powers over all of British
India. William Bentinck was the first to be appointed to
the position of the Governor-General of India;
6. Under Section 45, all unrepealed laws would have the
same force as any legislation passed by the British
Parliament, and under Section 51, the power of the
British Parliament to make laws for India was spelt out;
7. Under Section 53, the creation of a Law Commission
was provided for, to enquire into existing laws, work on
codification of laws for common applicability with due
regard to local customs and usages and taking into
account ‘distinction of castes, difference of religion, and
the manners and opinions prevailing among different
races and in different parts of the said territories’. The
use of the words ‘caste’ and ‘races’ in the Charter Act
has immense significance, for it reflects the entry of
both categories in the administrative and legal
infrastructure of the coloniser’s establishment. Further,
it was the first pre-Independence Law Commission of
1834 under the Chairmanship of Thomas Babington
Macaulay whose recommendations led to the Indian
Penal Code of 1860, the original Code of Criminal
Procedure of 1898, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 and
the Indian Contract Act of 1872;
8. Under Section 87, the entry of Indians into the
colonial administrative structure was facilitated through
provision of a non-discrimination clause in favour of the
natives. This was the precursor to the introduction of the
civil services in Bharat; and
9. Under Section 89, two more Bishops were appointed,
one each for Madras and Bombay, who would be subject
to the authority of the Bishop in Calcutta. Also, under
Section 94, the Bishop of Calcutta was designated as
the Metropolitan Bishop in India, to whom the other two
Bishops were subordinate. The Bishop of Calcutta
himself was subject to the superintendence of the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
For all our contemporary understanding of the separation of
the Church and the State, the provisions of the 1833 Charter
Act themselves tell the story of the establishment of the
Church by the State in Bharat by the Christian European
coloniser. And if these provisions do not tell the story in its
entirety, the Parliamentary debates surrounding the passing
of the 1833 Act speak volumes of the colonial and civilising
mission of the British establishment in Bharat without a
smidgen of equivocation or apologia for its intent or goals.
From religion to education, the debates underscore the
evangelical intent to ‘reform’ and convert Indians.
For instance, Charles Grey, who had held the office of the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in India, had hoped that
the diverse legal systems of Bharat would witness gradual
consolidation with the increase in the number of ‘native
Christians, British and Colonial persons, and foreigners’, ‘a
result which must gradually take place’. His views were
quoted with approval on 13 June 183335 by Charles Grant,
one of the leading proponents of Christian missionary
activity and ‘social reform and education’ in Bharat in the
British Parliament. He was a close like-minded associate of
William Wilberforce, who believed in the marriage between
evangelical Christianity and social reform. Following are the
relevant extracts of Grant’s views, quoted in second person
from the debates that took place on the aforementioned
date:
Under the influence of severe regulations, slowly and
tardily relaxed, the number of Europeans in India had
increased; and he proposed to increase the facilities for
Europeans to settle in India. If he were asked whence
arose the necessity for this change in the system under
which British supremacy had grown up and been
supported, he must advert to the singular change which
had of late years taken place in the character of Indian
society. There was nothing so remarkable in the history
of India as the change which had of late years taken
place in the dispositions and feelings of the natives,
more particularly within the last fifteen years. The
natives had become attached to European sciences and
arts—they had learnt our language—they used our
luxuries—and were making great strides towards
adopting many of our habits. He would quote some
admirable remarks made by Lord William Bentinck in a
Minute drawn up on May 30, 1829. The right Honourable
Gentleman read the following extract:- ‘Recent events,
and the occurrences now passing under our eyes, still
more clearly justify the persuasion, that whatever
change would be beneficial for our native subjects we
may hope to see adopted, in part at least, at no distant
period, if adequate means and motives be presented. I
need scarcely mention the increasing demand which
almost all who possess the means, evince for various
articles of convenience and luxury purely European. It is
in many cases very remarkable. Even in the celebration
of their most sacred festivals, a great change is said to
be perceptible in Calcutta. Much of what used, in old
times, to be distributed among beggars and Brahmins,
is now, in many instances, devoted to the ostentatious
entertainment of Europeans; and generally the amount
expended in useless alms is stated to have been greatly
curtailed. The complete and cordial co-operation of the
native gentry in promoting education and in furthering
other objects of public utility; the astonishing progress
which a large body of Hindoo youth has made in the
acquisition of the English language, literature, and
science; the degree in which they have conquered
prejudices that might otherwise have been deemed the
most inveterate (the students in the medical class of the
Hindoo College under Dr. Tytler, as well as in the
medical native school under Dr. Breton, in which there
are pupils of the highest castes, are said to dissect
animals, and freely to handle the bones of a human
skeleton); the freedom and the talent with which, in
many of the essays we lately had exhibited to us, old
customs are discussed; the anxiety evinced at Delhi,
and at Agra, and elsewhere, for the means of instruction
in the English language; the readiness everywhere
shown to profit by such means of instruction as we have
afforded; the facility with which the natives have
adapted themselves to new rules and institutions; the
extent to which they have entered into new speculations
after the example of our countrymen; the spirit with
which many are said to be now prosecuting that branch
of manufacture (indigo) which has alone as yet been
fully opened to British enterprise; the mutual confidence
which Europeans and natives evince in their
transactions as merchants and bankers; these, and
other circumstances, leave in my mind no doubt that
our native subjects would profit largely by a more
general intercourse with intelligent and respectable
Europeans, and would promptly recognise the
advantage of it [emphasis added].
Following were the Resolutions moved by Grant:
1. That it is expedient that all his Majesty’s subjects
shall be at liberty to repair to the ports of the empire of
China, and to trade in tea and in all other productions of
the said empire; subject to such regulations as
Parliament shall enact for the protection of the
commercial and political interests of this country.
2. That it is expedient that, in case the East-India
Company shall transfer to the Crown, on behalf of the
Indian territory, all assets and claims of every
description belonging to the said Company, the Crown,
on behalf of the Indian territory, shall take on itself all
the obligations of the said Company, of whatever
description, and that the said Company shall receive
from the revenues of the said territory such a sum, and
paid in such a manner, and under such regulations, as
Parliament shall enact.
3. That it is expedient that the Government of the
British possessions in India be intrusted to the said
Company, under such conditions and regulations as
Parliament shall enact, for the purpose of extending the
commerce of this country, and of securing the good
government and promoting the moral and religious
improvement of the people of India [emphasis added].
These Resolutions were then communicated by the House of
Commons on 17 June 1833 to the House of Lords for the
latter’s concurrence.36 The debates that subsequently took
place again in the House of Commons further reinforce
Christian European coloniality. For instance, on 10 July
1833,37 the fact that the Company presided over a ‘Christian
government’ was brought up several times to castigate it for
its mercantilism and profiteering conduct despite its
Christian character. Even in the most charitable of
references to the ‘Hindoo’ society, which were meant to
highlight their inhuman treatment by the Company and its
greed, words, such as superstition, were used liberally.
Sample the following extract from the submissions of James
Silk Buckingham, the then member of the British Parliament
from Sheffield:
He put it to the candour and the justice of the House,
then, whether he had not adduced sufficient evidence to
prove that even in their mercantile capacity they were
wholly unable to manage their affairs advantageously
for themselves? Nay, he would ask, whether the history
of the world presented another instance of equal
mismanagement to this? Where a Company, setting out
with the means of importing the richest cargoes from
the East without cost, and selling them without
competition, had yet brought itself to a state of
bankruptcy so complete as this? But, in addition to this,
which for his own part he should deem sufficient ground
for refusing to vest the government of India for another
twenty years in the hands of such incapables, he would
now advert to the condition to which they had brought
the territory of India, by the grinding exactions to which
they had subjected it; and show that in fiscal rapacity,
they had gone beyond even the Mohammedans, to
whose rule they had succeeded. It was a maxim of the
Mohammedan law, founded on the dictates of the Koran,
that the lives and property of all conquered people were
the absolute possession of the conquering power; and
that it was perfectly just to exact from every estate the
half of its gross produce, as the legitimate share of the
Government, leaving to the cultivator the burthen of
paying every charge of production, and subsisting as
well as he could, out of the other half. But the Christian
government of the India Company had refined upon this:
and, not content with this extravagant exaction of fivetenths of the gross produce of every estate in the
country, as rent, (the Government claiming the right of
absolute proprietorship in every acre of the soil) they
had carried the superior fiscal knowledge which they
possessed beyond the rapacity of their Mohammedan
predecessors; and wrung out from the unhappy people
subject to their dominion, more than the infidels or
tyrants of the Mogul race, as they were called, had ever
dreamed of exacting….
…. Yet, with all this frugality of living, at an expense,
perhaps, of less than 3d. per day, the unfortunate
cultivators of Hindoostan had been unable to obtain, for
their portion of the produce of the soil, sufficient for the
barest subsistence that would keep men alive; and with
all their attachment to their altars and their homes, they
had been obliged by exaction and oppression, to leave
both, and migrate into the territories of a native Indian
prince, the Rajah of Mysore—there to find, under the
government of a heathen and an infidel, that mercy
which had been denied them under the Christian
government of the India Company, to which we were
nevertheless now called upon to consign over a hundred
millions of these helpless people for a period of twenty
years more [emphases added]!
On how the Company, as a Christian government, was
impeding the work of Christian missionaries in Bharat as
opposed to aiding them, as was expected of a Christian
government, the following was the criticism heaped by
Buckingham in the House of Commons:
.... Among the various pretexts on which the East-India
Company grounded their claims to admiration, for the
excellence of their rule, none was more frequently or
powerfully insisted on than this: that, though they had
conquered the country, they had always respected the
religious usages of the people—they were tolerant even
of their abominations, and would not venture to disturb
their most obscene or bloody rites. But what was the
real state of the case? It was this:- Wherever no profit
was to be made, by interfering with the native
superstitions, there they permitted them to flourish, in
all their rankness and deformity. But wherever gain was
to be acquired, they had no more scruple in violating
the sanctity of their religion, than they had in
overturning their thrones, in emptying their treasuries,
in carrying off their wealth, or in violating their domestic
hearths.
Let the testimony of others, however, prove this fact,
rather than his own. He would cite the evidence of
Colonel Phipps, an officer of the Bengal army, who,
having been stationed at the great temple of the idol
juggernaut, in command of the guard for preserving the
peace, while the taxes were levied there, had the best
means of arriving at the truth: and this was his
statement, taken from a valuable work, entitled, ‘India’s
Cries to British Humanity.’ (The Honourable Member
accordingly read a long passage, showing that the
Government sanctioned the pilgrimage to Juggernaut,
by taxing the pilgrims, and by adopting means in
conjunction with the natives to make the tax easy of
collection and productive, [sic] The conclusion was this:
‘The Government at first authorised these people to
collect at the barriers a fee from the pilgrims for their
own benefit; but this privilege having been abused, it
was resolved that the British Collector should levy,
besides the tax for the State, an additional one, the
amount of which he subsequently paid over to the
Purharees and Pandas, in such proportions as they were
entitled to, from the number of pilgrims, which each had
succeeded in enticing to undertake the pilgrimage’, p.
219.)
Here was an organised system of procuring pilgrims to
the bloody shrine of the Indian Moloch. Here was a body
of Idol Missionaries, far exceeding in number the whole
of the Christian Missionaries in the East, going forth
clothed with all the authority of the British name and
power, paid by the Company’s Government, and their
zeal stimulated by a payment of a certain sum per head
on every pilgrim brought to bow himself before the
wooden god; and this too, when the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, and the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, were each
calling loudly for an increase to the number of the
Bishops in India. In the way of actual conversion, the
Bishops already sent had done nothing, though they
were men of talent, learning, and zeal; and even the
Christian missionaries had met with obstacles rather
than encouragement from the India Company, and
those holding authority under them; while the idol
worshippers and pilgrim hunters, had made rapid
progress, and were still increasing under the auspices of
those honourable and Christian rulers, to whom we were
again about to consign over India for their benefit
[emphasis added].
Just to be clear, the ‘idol missionaries’ referred to in the
extract here were the Pandas/Brahmin Priests of the Shri
Jagannath Mandir and the ‘wooden god’ referred to above
was Lord Jagannath at Puri, Odisha. Once again, the
Company was referred to as a ‘Christian ruler’, criticised for
impeding the work of missionaries, apart from lamenting
that the Bishops that had already been sent to Bharat had
done nothing by way of actual conversion and that ‘idol
worshippers’ had made rapid progress under the auspices of
‘Christian rulers’.
This was followed by a fairly detailed speech by Thomas
Babington Macaulay on the same day, who touched upon a
host of issues, including on the need for consolidation and
codification of laws in Bharat, comparing its diversity with
that of Europe. Apart from citing the need for uniformity in
laws and legal outcomes, the approach to indigenous
societal structures and the demonisation of the ‘caste’
system as well as Brahmins may be traced to Macaulay to a
significant extent. Critically, he made no bones of the fact
that the spread of European civilisation in the East would
benefit Britain from the standpoint of governance since
Europeanisation of the native population would bridge the
cultural gap and make governance and assimilation less
cumbersome. In addition to highlighting the practicality and
commercial sense behind this approach, this position was
couched in moral righteousness befitting the coloniser’s
coloniality. Following are a few relevant extracts from his
speech that attest to this:
Having given to the Government supreme legislative
power, we next propose to give to it for a time the
assistance of a commission for the purpose of digesting
and reforming the laws of India, so that those laws may,
as soon as possible, be formed into a Code. Gentleman
of whom I wish to speak with the highest respect have
expressed a doubt whether India be at present in a fit
state to receive a benefit which is not yet enjoyed by
this free and highly civilised country. Sir, I can allow to
this argument very little weight beyond that which it
derives from the personal authority of those who use it.
For, in the first place, our freedom and our high
civilisation make this improvement, desirable as it must
always be, less indispensably necessary to us than to
our Indian subjects; and in the next place, our freedom
and civilisation, I fear, make it far more difficult for us to
obtain this benefit for ourselves than to bestow it on
them.
I believe that no country ever stood so much in need
of a code of laws as India; and I believe also that there
never was a country in which the want might so easily
be supplied. I said that there were many points of
analogy between the state of that country after the fall
of the Mogul power, and the state of Europe after the
fall of the Roman empire. In one respect the analogy is
very striking. As there were in Europe then, so there are
in India now, several systems of law widely differing
from each other, but coexisting and coequal. The
indigenous population has its own laws. Each of the
successive races of conquerors has brought with it its
own peculiar jurisprudence: the Mussulman his Koran
and the innumerable commentators on the Koran; the
Englishman his Statute Book and his Term Reports. As
there were established in Italy, at one and the same
time, the Roman law, the Lombard law, the Ripuarian
law, the Bavarian law, and the Salic law, so we have
now in our Eastern empire Hindoo law, Mahometan law,
Parsee law, English law, perpetually mingling with each
other and disturbing each other, varying with the
person, varying with the place. In one and the same
cause the process and pleadings are in the fashion of
one nation, the judgment is according to the laws of
another. An issue is evolved according to the rules of
Westminster, and decided according to those of
Benares. The only Mahometan book in the nature of a
code is the Koran; the only Hindoo book, the Institutes.
Everybody who knows those books knows that they
provide for a very small part of the cases which must
arise in every community. All beyond them is comment
and tradition. Our regulations in civil matters do not
define rights, but merely establish remedies. If a point of
Hindoo law arises, the Judge calls on the Pundit for an
opinion. If a point of Mahometan law arises, the Judge
applies to the Cauzee. What the integrity of these
functionaries is, we may learn from Sir William Jones.
That eminent man declared that he could not answer it
to his conscience to decide any point of law on the faith
of a Hindoo expositor. Sir Thomas Strange confirms this
declaration. Even if there were no suspicion of
corruption on the part of the interpreters of the law, the
science which they profess is in such a state of
confusion that no reliance can be placed on their
answers. Sir Francis Macnaghten tells us, that it is a
delusion to fancy that there is any known and fixed law
under which the Hindoo people live; that texts may be
produced on any side of any question; that expositors
equal in authority perpetually contradict each other:
that the obsolete law is perpetually confounded with the
law actually in force; and that the first lesson to be
impressed on a functionary who has to administer
Hindoo law is that it is vain to think of extracting
certainty from the books of the jurist. The consequence
is that in practice the decisions of the tribunals are
altogether arbitrary. What is administered is not law, but
a kind of rude and capricious equity. I asked an able and
excellent judge lately returned from India how one of
our Zillah Courts would decide several legal questions of
great
importance,
questions
not
involving
considerations of religion or of caste, mere questions of
commercial law. He told me that it was a mere lottery.
He knew how he should himself decide them. But he
knew nothing more. I asked a most distinguished civil
servant of the Company, with reference to the clause in
this Bill on the subject of slavery, whether at present, if
a dancing girl ran away from her master, the judge
would force her to go back. ‘Some judges,’ he said,
‘send a girl back. Others set her at liberty. The whole is
a mere matter of chance. Everything depends on the
temper of the individual judge.’
Even in this country we have had complaints of judgemade law; even in this country, where the standard of
morality is higher than in almost any other part of the
world; where, during several generations, not one
depositary of our legal traditions has incurred the
suspicion of personal corruption; where there are
popular institutions; where every decision is watched by
a shrewd and learned audience; where there is an
intelligent and observant public; where every
remarkable case is fully reported in a hundred
newspapers; where, in short, there is everything which
can mitigate the evils of such a system. But judge-made
law, where there is an absolute government and a lax
morality, where there is no bar and no public, is a curse
and a scandal not to be endured. It is time that the
magistrate should know what law he is to administer,
that the subject should know under what law he is to
live. We do not mean that all the people of India should
live under the same law: far from it: there is not a word
in the bill, there was not a word in my right honourable
friend’s speech, susceptible of such an interpretation.
We know how desirable that object is; but we also know
that it is unattainable. We know that respect must be
paid to feelings generated by differences of religion, of
nation, and of caste. Much, I am persuaded, may be
done to assimilate the different systems of law without
wounding those feelings. But, whether we assimilate
those systems or not, let us ascertain them; let us
digest them. We propose no rash innovation; we wish to
give no shock to the prejudices of any part of our
subjects. Our principle is simply this; uniformity where
you can have it: diversity where you must have it; but in
all cases certainty.
As I believe that India stands more in need of a code
than any other country in the world, I believe also that
there is no country on which that great benefit can more
easily be conferred. A code is almost the only blessing,
perhaps is the only blessing, which absolute
governments are better fitted to confer on a nation than
popular governments. The work of digesting a vast and
artificial system of unwritten jurisprudence is far more
easily performed, and far better performed, by few
minds than by many, by a Napoleon than by a Chamber
of Deputies and a Chamber of Peers, by a government
like that of Prussia or Denmark than by a government
like that of England. A quiet knot of two or three veteran
jurists is an infinitely better machinery for such a
purpose than a large popular assembly divided, as such
assemblies almost always are, into adverse factions.
This seems to me, therefore, to be precisely that point
of time at which the advantage of a complete written
code of laws may most easily be conferred on India. It is
a work which cannot be well performed in an age of
barbarism, which cannot without great difficulty be
performed in an age of freedom. It is a work which
especially belongs to a government like that of India, to
an enlightened and paternal despotism.
I have detained the House so long, Sir, that I will defer
what I had to say on some parts of this measure,
important parts, indeed, but far less important, as I
think, than those to which I have adverted, till we are in
Committee. There is, however, one part of the bill on
which, after what has recently passed elsewhere, I feel
myself irresistibly impelled to say a few words. I allude
to that wise, that benevolent, that noble clause which
enacts that no native of our Indian empire shall, by
reason of his colour, his descent, or his religion, be
incapable of holding office. At the risk of being called by
that nickname which is regarded as the most
opprobrious of all nicknames by men of selfish hearts
and contracted minds, at the risk of being called a
philosopher, I must say that, to the last day of my life, I
shall be proud of having been one of those who assisted
in the framing of the bill which contains that clause. We
are told that the time can never come when the natives
of India can be admitted to high civil and military office.
We are told that this is the condition on which we hold
our power. We are told that we are bound to confer on
our subjects every benefit—which they are capable of
enjoying?—no;—which it is in our power to confer on
them?—no;—but which we can confer on them without
hazard to the perpetuity of our own domination. Against
that proposition I solemnly protest as inconsistent alike
with sound policy and sound morality.
I am far, very far, from wishing to proceed hastily in
this most delicate matter. I feel that, for the good of
India itself, the admission of natives to high office must
be effected by slow degrees. But that, when the fulness
of time is come, when the interest of India requires the
change, we ought to refuse to make that change lest we
should endanger our own power, this is a doctrine of
which I cannot think without indignation. Governments,
like men, may buy existence too dear. ‘Propter vitam
vivendi perdere causas,’ is a despicable policy both in
individuals and in states. In the present case, such a
policy would be not only despicable, but absurd. The
mere extent of empire is not necessarily an advantage.
To many governments it has been cumbersome; to
some it has been fatal. It will be allowed by every
statesman of our time that the prosperity of a
community is made up of the prosperity of those who
compose the community, and that it is the most childish
ambition to covet dominion which adds to no man’s
comfort or security. To the great trading nation, to the
great manufacturing nation, no progress which any
portion of the human race can make in knowledge, in
taste for the conveniences of life, or in the wealth by
which those conveniences are produced, can be matter
of indifference. It is scarcely possible to calculate the
benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of
European civilisation among the vast population of the
East. It would be, on the most selfish view of the case,
far better for us that the people of India were well
governed and independent of us, than ill governed and
subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings,
but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our
cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to
English collectors and English magistrates, but were too
ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English
manufactures. To trade with civilised men is infinitely
more profitable than to govern savages. That would,
indeed, be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India
might remain a dependency, would make it a useless
and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred
millions of men from being our customers in order that
they might continue to be our slaves.
It was, as Bernier tells us, the practice of the
miserable tyrants whom he found in India, when they
dreaded the capacity and spirit of some distinguished
subject, and yet could not venture to murder him, to
administer to him a daily dose of the pousta, a
preparation of opium, the effect of which was in a few
months to destroy all the bodily and mental powers of
the wretch who was drugged with it, and to turn him
into a helpless idiot. The detestable artifice, more
horrible than assassination itself, was worthy of those
who employed it. It is no model for the English nation.
We shall never consent to administer the pousta to a
whole community, to stupefy and paralyse a great
people whom God has committed to our charge, for the
wretched purpose of rendering them more amenable to
our control. What is power worth if it is founded on vice,
on ignorance, and on misery; if we can hold it only by
violating the most sacred duties which as governors we
owe to the governed, and which, as a people blessed
with far more than an ordinary measure of political
liberty and of intellectual light, we owe to a race
debased by three thousand years of despotism and
priestcraft? We are free, we are civilised, to little
purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race
an equal measure of freedom and civilisation.
Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order
that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that
we can give them knowledge without awakening
ambition? Or do we mean to awaken ambition and to
provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any
of these questions in the affirmative? Yet one of them
must be answered in the affirmative, by every person
who maintains that we ought permanently to exclude
the natives from high office. I have no fears. The path of
duty is plain before us: and it is also the path of wisdom,
of national prosperity, of national honour.
The destinies of our Indian empire are covered with
thick darkness. It is difficult to form any conjecture as to
the fate reserved for a state which resembles no other
in history, and which forms by itself a separate class of
political phenomena. The laws which regulate its growth
and its decay are still unknown to us. It may be that the
public mind of India may expand under our system till it
has outgrown that system; that by good government we
may educate our subjects into a capacity for better
government; that, having become instructed in
European knowledge, they may, in some future age,
demand European institutions. Whether such a day will
ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert
or to retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the
proudest day in English history. To have found a great
people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and
superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made
them desirous and capable of all the privileges of
citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all our own. The
sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents
may derange our most profound schemes of policy.
Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are
triumphs which are followed by no reverse. There is an
empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. Those
triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over
barbarism; that empire is the imperishable empire of
our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws
[emphasis added].
Macaulay’s speech captures the essence of colonial
consciousness so thoroughly that I do not think I can
improve upon it. On 19 July 1833,38 the ramping up of
Church infrastructure in India was discussed in the House of
Commons, with significant support for the proposal of
Charles Grant, reflected in the debates as follows:
Mr. Finch—supported the clause, and contended, that it
was necessary for the advancement of religion that
there should be an Established Church in India able to
meet the increasing Christian population.
Mr. O’Dwyer—opposed the clause, and said, that he
could see no necessity for increasing the Episcopal
Establishment in India. It would be moreover a
precedent to extend the Church Establishment all over
the British territory.
Mr. Ruthven—opposed the clause, at some length, and
said, that it would be more fair if all denominations were
placed on the same footing. He objected strongly to
introducing a Church Establishment into India when this
country was groaning under the weight of a Church
Establishment.
Lord Morpeth—When he compared the amount of
service to be performed, and the extent of country and
population over which it was spread, he did not think
that three Bishops were more than sufficient to perform
those duties. The change did not propose any additional
expense, and he thought the maintenance of an
Established Church was a matter of national concern,
and of the greatest importance to the British, as well as
to the Pagan, or rather Semi Pagan inhabitants of India.
Mr. Cutlar Fergusson—said, the only question before
the House was, whether the Episcopal Establishment
was to be increased or not? If the question had been
whether the Episcopal Establishment was to be
introduced into India, he should have voted differently.
Two Bishops might possibly be quite sufficient, and he
did not pledge himself to the number. The Bishops who
had died in India so rapidly, had not died in
consequence of excessive labour in their professional
duties, but in consequence of the great precariousness
of human life in that climate... . Whether there should
be two or three Bishops, he did not mean to give an
opinion; but there ought to be more than one. He did
not think there was any hardship in compelling the
inhabitants of India to pay not only for the Government
which protects them, but also for the religion of that
Government. With great submission to the Honourable
Member for the University of Oxford, he must inform
him that there was no dominant religion where the
British flag was hoisted abroad. In India as elsewhere,
the Established Churches of England, Ireland, and that
of Scotland, stood upon an equal footing. He, therefore,
concurred in this clause to the extent which he had
mentioned, but no further, and without holding himself
bound to any of the subsequent clauses relative to the
Church in India [emphases added].
On 26 July 1833,39 when the Charter Bill was again taken up,
on the question of Indians being expected to pay for the
establishment of the Church in Bharat, Buckingham opposed
this primarily on the grounds that (a) Indians must not be
expected to pay for the establishment of a religion in Bharat
which they believed to be false and (b) Indians could be
inspired to convert to Christianity if the Church
establishment in Bharat conducted itself with Christian
frugality, humility and piety. In other words, even those
voices that appeared to speak for the rights of Indians were
still convinced of the need to Christianise Bharat. Here are
excerpts from his submissions to the House of Commons:
But what would be said by us, if, in the event of a
conquest of our country by Hindoos and Mohammedans,
they were to increase their establishments of pundits
and moollahs, and force the Christians to pay for them?
Or if the celebrated Bramin, Ram Mohun Roy, now in this
country, were to set up a Pagan shrine, and levy
contributions on the Christians of England for its
support? Yet this was exactly what the Bill would do
towards the natives of India: and, therefore, upon the
true Christian principle, of doing unto others what we
would they should do unto us, he should feel it his duty
to resist so great an injustice.
Some had thought, however, that as the orientals
were much impressed by pomp and rank, there was
something in the dignity of a Bishop which would have
an imposing effect upon the natives of India, and win
them over to Christianity. No mistake could be greater
than this. This conversion of the natives to Christianity
could only be effected by that familiar inter-course with
them to which Bishops would never be likely to
condescend. If they travelled, it was in a luxurious
palanquin, borne on the shoulders of men, with
umbrellas on either side to shield them from the rays of
the sun; and a long retinue of pomp and state, which
rendered the approach of the humble native, except in
some menial capacity, wholly impossible. If they
remained at home, they resided in a palace, receiving
as companions only Europeans of the highest rank. The
true instruments of conversion were the humble but
zealous Missionaries, who, animated by a fervent and
inextinguishable zeal, would go into the villages, invite
and draw near to the people—converse with them in
their own tongue, and endure sufferings and privations,
to which no Bishop, archdeacon, or other dignitary of
the Church would ever submit: and indeed it was by the
Missionaries at Serampore, and in other parts of India,
that whatever good had been already done in the way
of education, or moral and religious improvement, had
been wholly effected. The course was a very plain one,
if the Ministers would only have the courage to adopt it.
It was this: that every religion should be supported by
those who believed in it, and who, on that ground,
would be willing to give it their aid. If the Members of
the Church of England in India wished to have an
increase of Bishops, let them be sent out, and those
who called for them might fairly be left to pay for their
support. If the Presbyterians and the Catholics wished
an increase to their teachers, let them do the same. It
was in this manner that Christianity was supported by
the voluntary aid of its believers in the Apostolic age: it
was, in this manner, that Christianity among the
Dissenters of England was supported now: and it was his
conviction that the nearer we approached to the truly
Evangelical Spirit of the New Testament, and made its
practice, as well as its percepts, the model of our
imitation, the nearer we should approach perfection,
and the sooner we should accomplish the great end of
spreading the truth over every region of the earth.
We should be careful, however, not to introduce even
the germ of Hierarchy into India; for in that prolific soil,
though its first particle should be as small as the
mustard seed, it would spread into a tree, large enough
to afford shelter by its branches to all the fowls of the
air. As an illustration of the manner in which the spirit of
a dominant Church had already evinced itself in India,
he would mention this anecdote. About the period of his
first arrival in that country, a Presbyterian chapel was
just about to be built in Bombay, the service having
been previously held in the Court House there; when, a
question arising about crowning the edifice with a
steeple, Bishop Middle-ton protested against this, on the
ground that Dissenters had no right to steeples, which
were the distinguished characteristics of the privileged
or Established Church; and maintained an obstinate
controversy on this point; and that, too, in a country
where the Hindoos might build pagodas till they touched
the moon, and the Mahommedans might elevate their
minarets till they lost their summits among the stars, as
far at least as any Christian Bishop concerned himself
about the matter; and in a community where the
greater portion of the British-born subjects were either
Irish Roman Catholics, or Scotch Presbyterians, or
English Dissenters, who collectively formed a much
greater number than the Members of the Episcopalian
or English Established Church.
He repeated then his assertion, that the religion of the
New Testament was conceived ill a different spirit from
this; and that the nearer we approached to the purity,
economy, meekness, and piety of the Apostolic age, the
greater would be the probability of our enlightening,
moralising, and christianising, the whole Eastern world.
The last defect of the Bill that he would notice was this;
that notwithstanding that the two great evils under
which India laboured, were—first, excessive taxation,
which ground the natives down to the dust, and
deprived them of all physical enjoyment, by making
existence so miserable as to be a burthen in itself; and
—secondly, excessive ignorance, which rendered them
the prey of superstition and all its odious vices: yet the
Bill was wholly silent on the two great remedies—of
relief from fiscal oppression, and the spread of
education—without both of which, no improvement
could be hoped for in their unfortunate and miserable
condition. He was glad to hear the right Honourable
President of the India Board say, that the subjects of
infanticide, and other human sacrifices still prevalent in
India, were under consideration, and he hoped that in
this case the terra would not be found a mere official
evasion, without a sincere intention of coming to any
speedy conclusion, but that the consideration would be
pursued closely, until all these murderous rites and
revolting abominations should be altogether abolished
[emphases added].
It must be noted that even when equal protection of all
‘religions’ was discussed, the reference was to all the
religious denominations of Christianity and not to heathen
and infidel faiths. This is all the more evident from the
submissions of Richard Lalor Sheil, an Irish politician and
MP, and Charles Grant, extracts of which are given below:
Mr. Sheil—‘rose to propose a clause for making due
provision in India for the Roman Catholic and other
Churches dissenting from the Protestant Establishment,
regard being had to the population of the various
districts. He was one of those who were of opinion, that
the wisest course would have been, not to make
provision for any Ecclesiastical Establishment in India
whatever. The Company had objected to any extension
of the hierarchy. Those points, however, having been
disposed of, it was for the House now to consider
whether it would not be expedient to place all forms of
worship equally under the protection of Government. By
the existing Act on the subject, provision was made for a
Church Establishment in India, without stating whether
that Establishment should be of the English Church
alone, or not. The present Bill extended the hierarchy.
An Honourable Member for Scotland then called on his
Majesty’s Government to introduce a statutory provision
for the protection of the Scottish Church in India. The
President of the Board of Trade gave that Honourable
Gentleman an assurance that a statutory provision
should be introduced into the Bill for that purpose; and
accordingly he (Mr. Sheil) found, that a most important
change had been made in the Bill, and that a provision
had been introduced into it for the protection of the
Scotch Church.
He would ask what reason there was, that the Church
of Scotland was to be protected by statute, when the
Roman Catholics, who constituted so large a majority of
the Christian population of India, were not to be
protected? The whole amount of the Christian
population of India was 800,000, of whom not less than
600,000 were Roman Catholics, besides a large
population of Syrian Christians, whose tenets differed
from those of the Roman Catholics by a very slight and
evanescent line of demarcation. Thus there clearly
appeared to be an infinite majority of Roman Catholics
in the Christian population of India. In such a vast body
of the population, of whom a great number were Irish
soldiers, surely, in justice and good policy, there ought
to be the same protection as for other classes. At the
present moment the whole of the eight Roman Catholic
Bishops in India were maintained by the Portuguese
government, and, as had been most justly observed by
a competent authority, it was the worst policy to allow
this hierarchy to be supported by a foreign government.
He (Mr. Sheil) would therefore impress upon the House
the propriety of consulting their interest and character
by not depriving the Roman Catholics of the same
protection as the other religious classes. This would be
the only way of preventing those future dissensions
which would otherwise inevitably result. There were
quite sufficient precedents to authorise the House in
granting to the Roman Catholics the protection of a
statute. The Roman Catholic Establishment in Ireland in
general, the college of Maynooth, and similar
institutions, were all under the protection of the law,
and there was no possible reason why the Roman
Catholics abroad should be left unprotected.’
Mr. Charles Grant—‘objected to the Honourable
Gentleman’s clause. It was rather remarkable that, after
the strong denunciations made by the Honourable and
learned Gentleman against imposing any additional load
upon the Indians for the support of any other religion,
the
Honourable
and
learned
Gentleman,
notwithstanding, now strongly urged the imposition of a
still further amount of taxation for the support of the
Roman Catholic Church. The alteration which he had
suggested was not with a view to establish any
Ecclesiastical domination in India, but with a much
higher and general view. Besides, the clause of the
Honourable and learned Gentleman could hardly be
admitted, as being too general and indefinite in its
nature, for it proposed that “all forms of worship should
be equally under the protection of Government, and
that due provision should be made for the maintenance
of Churches dissenting from the Protestant Episcopal
Church.” This would bring under the protection of
Government, not merely Christian forms of worship, but
every description of religion, even the idolatrous creed
of the Heathen sects, many of which were such, as, so
far from calling for the protection of Government, loudly
called for the most strenuous efforts to suppress them,
such as those where human victims were sacrificed. The
Honourable and learned Gentleman, too, had rather
exaggerated the extent of the Catholic population. It
would be the pride of the Protestant religion to make
converts by the superior tone of its morality, and by the
example given by its profession. The country might rest
assured, however, that it was the desire and intention of
Government to afford protection to all classes; and to
make this apparent, he would propose to add as a
proviso, that nothing in the Bill should be held to
prevent the Governor of India in Council from advancing
a sum of money for providing instruction for Christians
of all classes, or from withholding due protection to all
classes’ [emphases added].
The contents of these debates prove that Bharat was
treated as a fertile territory for soul-harvesting by various
Christian denominations, all of which sought a level playing
field to compete for the status of the true champions of the
one true religion, the one true God and His gospel.
Therefore, this much can be said without equivocation—one
of the primary intents behind the provisions of the 1833
Charter Act, as evidenced by the debates, was to lay the
foundation of Christianity in Bharat through State support
for conversion of the native (through a long-term
Europeanisation project), with equal opportunity for
evangelical
work
being
assured
to
all
Christian
denominations.
The position under the Charter Act of 1833 was taken
forward in The East India Company Act of 1853 for the most
part, except for the following important changes:
1. Under the previous Charter Acts, term of each Charter
was 20 years. However, under the 1853 Act, Section 1
expressly stated until the British Parliament provided
otherwise, British Indian territories would be held in
trust by the Company for the British Crown;
2. The legislative and executive functions of the
Governor- General’s councils were separated and a 12member legislative council was created; and
3. The creation of an Indian Civil Service was envisaged,
which led to the formation of the Macaulay Committee
on Indian Civil Service in 1854.
The creation of a framework which the Indian elite could
aspire to be a part of was the most significant contribution
of the 1853 Act and the colonial consciousness behind it
was stated categorically in the Parliamentary debates prior
to the passing of the Act. Following were the observations of
the Earl of Derby, Edward Stanley, also the then British
prime minister, on 2 April 1852 in the House of Lords40:
The Earl of Derby—‘With regard to that which I must
look upon as one of the most leading objects connected
with the affairs of India, though it is an establishment
which has to contend with many obstacles, and work its
way gradually through a mass of ignorance and
superstition, and of conflicting difficulties, which render
its advance slow and almost imperceptible, it is
satisfactory to know that, whereas through the whole of
the vast territories of India there were only employed in
the service of the Company 31 chaplains of the Church
of England, in 1813, when the episcopal authority was
first introduced, in 1832 there were a bishop and 75
clergymen. The Act of 1833 multiplied the number of
bishops, assigning its bishop to each separate
Presidency. There are now, instead of 31 chaplains, as in
1812, or 75, as in 1832, three bishops, and no less than
130 chaplains of the Church of England, independent of
the ministers of the Scotch Church. Of the great social
improvements which have taken place, cautiously and
gradually introduced, since 1834, I cannot but mention,
in the first place, that which had been the object of the
constant and earnest attention of this country, namely,
the total and entire abolition of slavery throughout its
dominions; and, although great difficulties have had to
be encountered, yet, by the Act passed in 1843, in India,
as in the rest of Her Majesty’s dominions, slavery was at
once and completely abolished. Another not less
gratifying change has taken place with regard to the
administration of justice in India. In 1833 it was
contemplated to establish, and there was established, a
Legal Commission for the purpose of examining into the
whole system of jurisprudence in India; the whole
system of the penal and civil law, and reporting
generally their opinions with regard to the necessary
alterations… . But, although the Commission sent out in
1833 sat for some time, and laboured very industriously,
and produced a most elaborate penal code, which is at
the present moment, I believe, under the consideration
of the Government of India, that Commission, from
various circumstances, did not enter upon the
discussion of the whole of the extensive subject
committed to it; ... am quite sure, that this is your
bounden duty in the interests of humanity, of
benevolence, and of morality and religion—that as far
and as fast as you can do it safely, wisely, and
prudently, the inhabitants of India should be gradually
intrusted with more and more of the superintendence of
their own internal affairs, under the control of British
authority, and taught to respect that authority which is
vested in the law, and which they see judiciously and
firmly enforced, temperately enforced also, by the
superior British authority, which they may by long habit
and practice learn to imitate, and, I would hope, even to
surpass. And, my Lords, even if this gradual admission
of the Indian race to the benefits of self-government,
slowly and cautiously, should have the effect, not of
consolidating and extending the great fabric of British
dominion which has been built up in that country, but of
leading a people accustomed to self-government to
desire something more of control over their political, as
well as their judicial affairs—I say that, even if the
gigantic power of Britain over India should in the course
of years, but centuries must first elapse, fall to the
ground by the operation of our own hands, it will have
been an achievement worthy of a nation like this to
have rescued the native population from the state of
ignorance, superstition, and debasement in which we
found a large portion of them sunk, and to have placed
them, at the expiration of the period of our dominion, in
the capacity of administering the affairs of their own
country as an independent nation, but under the
influence of those laws, those principles, and those
sound maxims which they ought ever to entertain
gratitude to this country for having with care and pains
instilled into their hearts. My Lords, I say this is not a
work of months, or of years, nor it may be of centuries;
but, though we may not live to see it, that does not
absolve us from the duty, while we carefully abstain
from placing in the hands of an ignorant population
power which they are incapable of yielding for their own
benefit; it does not absolve us from the obligation of
endeavouring to raise that population in the social
scale, and of carefully intrusting them with such an
amount of the administration of their own local affairs
as, not to their detriment but to their benefit, they may
safely
be
enabled
to
carry
on
under
the
superintendence of this country’ [emphases added].
On 19 April 1852, John Charles Herries, a member of the
House of Commons, highlighted the concrete impact of the
missionary clause of the 1833 Charter Act as follows41:
Mr. Herries—‘There was another subject of great
importance, which he could not omit to notice, even at
the risk of tiring the patience of the House; and this was
the state of education in India, and the means adopted
to promote it under the existing form of government.
But in order to arrive at what had been done, it was
necessary to consider what was the original number of
public educational establishments, and what was the
number at the present moment. He found that in 1823,
the only really native endowments or educational
establishments founded by the British Government were
the Mahometan College at Calcutta, and the Sanscrit
College at Benares. In 1835, there were fourteen of
these establishments already in existence; and in 1852
in Bengal, and the North West Provinces alone there are
about forty. Here was an augmentation from two years
ago, to forty in 1852. But that was not all. Greater food
for congratulation might be found in the evidence they
possessed of the effects of these educational
establishments in instructing and expanding the minds
of those who have had recourse to them. He must here
observe that in 1835 a very important change was
made in the mode of imparting information from the
system which had been previously adopted; and the
beneficial results of that change may be inferred from
the report of Mr. Bethune, published in 1849. Mr.
Bethune says:- “There is no institution in England where
the answerers are subjected to a severer test than in
these institutions. I have no hesitation in saying that
every succeeding examination has increased my
admiration of the people, and of their attainments, both
literary and scientific.” In the Elphinstone Institution in
Bombay the course of education is equal to a course for
a degree at an English university; so that I think I may
fairly refer to all these institutions, their progress and
results, as a proof of the desire of the Indian
Government to forward the great cause of education
among the natives... . He could also refer with great
satisfaction to what had been done of late years in
respect to the ecclesiastical establishment in India. The
House was acquainted generally with that subject; but
when we looked at what was the state of ecclesiastical
establishments in India no further back than the year
1812, and compared them with what they were at the
present day, he could not help seeing a very broad
difference, and admitting that a very considerable
anxiety had been exhibited for the spiritual instruction
of so vast a body of people. In the year 1812 there were
only 14 chaplains at Bengal, 12 at Madras, and 5 at
Bombay. In 1813 a Bishop of Calcutta and three
archdeacons for the Presidency were appointed; in 1832
there were in Bengal 37 chaplains, in Madras 23, and in
Bombay 15; under the Act of 818 1833 the archdeacons
ceased, and two additional bishops were appointed, and
now there were 3 bishops and 68 chaplains in Bengal,
34 in Madras, and 28 in Bombay—making 3 bishops and
130 chaplains altogether, in addition to 6 of the Scotch
Church. It cannot be denied that the statistics speak
favourably of the exertions that have been made for the
spiritual instruction of the people of India’ [emphasis
added].
Henry Goulburn, a Conservative member of the British
Parliament, spoke of the manner in which the missionary
clause of the 1833 Act was but a continuum of the original
clause in the 1698 Charter. According to him, the entire
purpose of the colonial government was to raise the
morality and character of the people, and that this goal
could be achieved only through the spread of the Gospel.
Following were his thoughts in this regard:
Mr. Goulburn—‘One great branch of the inquiry he
conceived ought to be, what had been the results of
that system of religious instruction which was
introduced in 1833? He said introduced, because
previously the means were scarcely worthy of notice.
One great object to ascertain was, how far the means of
religious instruction for the people of India had been
carried out under the Act of 1833—whether those
means had led to the favourable results which were
anticipated—and, if not, how those means could be
made adequate to the extension of the Christian religion
throughout the whole of that large population? The
noble Lord had told them that they had conferred great
advantages upon the people of India, and he
enumerated the reform of their judicial administration,
the education of the people in political matters, and the
extension of general education; but he conceived the
noble Lord felt it necessary on the occasion to forbear
alluding to that which ought constantly to be placed
before them, the mode in which they could confer upon
the population of India the advantage of a knowledge of
a purer faith than any yet made known to them. He
knew that great alarm had formerly been felt on the
subject of the introduction of Christianity into India. It
was supposed that excitement and insurrection would
follow if Christianity were attempted to be introduced;
but circumstances had since come to light which had
dispelled that opinion. In one of the earliest charters of
the Company, in 1698, it was a specific injunction on the
Company to place in every garrison and settlement a
minister of religion approved by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, not merely for the instruction of the civil
servants of the Company, to whom the noble Lord
seemed to intimate that religious instruction ought to be
confined, but it was provided also that those ministers
should learn the native language so as to convert the
Hindoos and introduce, among the inhabitants of India a
purer faith Subsequently, owing to events at home, it
was thought fit to omit all allusion in the charters of the
Company to the subject of Christian instruction; but
latterly we had felt the pressing importance of
communicating the blessing of Christianity to the people
of India, and he thought, therefore, it ought to be one of
the leading objects of the inquiry before the Committee
how that could be best effected. It appeared to him that
if there existed any difficulty on the subject, inquiry
would expel it. At no time could inquiry be more
effectually conducted. There were men in England
competent to give the Committee the best information,
from their experience in India, how the religion of the
Church of England had been extended, and might be
still further extended there, and to satisfy them that
those restrictions which at present prohibited allusion to
the Christian religion might be safely dispensed with. On
former occasions it was urged that the prejudices of the
people were such that by attempting to disseminate the
principles of Christianity among them, we should incite
rebellion and insurrection, and that it was in vain to
attempt to overcome those prejudices, or to moderate
them. But since then, many of these inveterate
prejudices had been overcome; and one meritorious
officer, by his own exertions and prudent management
alone, had induced the Rajpoots, who were most
bigoted in the practice of suttee, to abandon that
practice, so revolting to all our feelings.
He considered that the empire of India had been
confided to us for great and important objects. He was
sure it was not given for the gratification of our national
vanity, as a field on which to exercise the valour of our
troops, as a means of increasing our national wealth,
nor even for the improving the judicial and political
relations of the different States of which that empire
was composed. It imposed on us the high moral duty of
taking such measures as prudence, combined with zeal,
would justify for the purpose of spreading over a
heathen continent the knowledge of that truth which
was essential to our own happiness, and which,
extended abroad, he believed might be essential to the
happiness of millions yet unborn.
Sir Thomas Munro had said - “There is one great
question to which we should look in all our
arrangements—namely, what is to be the final result of
our government on the character of the people, and
whether that character will be raised or lowered. Are we
to be satisfied with merely securing our power and
protecting the inhabitants, leaving them to sink
gradually in character lower than at present; or are we
to endeavour to raise their character? It ought
undoubtedly to be our aim to raise the minds of the
natives, and to take care that whenever our connexion
with India shall cease, it shall not appear that the only
fruit of our dominion had been to leave the people more
abject than when we found them. It would certainly be
more desirable that we should be expelled from the
country altogether, than that our system of government
should be such an abasement of a whole people.” He
(Mr. Goulburn) asserted this country could not fulfil the
wishes and objects of that great statesman otherwise
than by disseminating the truth of religion; and he
trusted the result of the labours of this Committee
would he, as it must be if prosecuted, to incite us to
future exertions in spreading the Gospel without the fear
of exciting those discontents which were so dreaded,
but which experience had shown so far to be altogether
groundless’ [emphases added].
While Ross Donnelly Mangles, a member of Parliament, was
opposed to State support for the Christian establishment in
India, his dissent only proves that the British Indian
government was indeed actively aiding missionary work in
Bharat. Not just that, his position is at best that of Christian
tolerance, which is premised on the belief that as long as
the State merely guaranteed the freedom of preaching the
Gospel without being required to support it any further, it
would produce converts of the first order as opposed to
raising up ‘a great body of hypocrites, seeking to curry
favour by the simulated adoption of Christianity’. Following
is an excerpt illustrating his views:
Mr. Mangles—‘said, that he was sincerely anxious that
the blessings of Christianity should be extended to the
people of India; but he did not think that the
Government, as a Government, should take any active
part in its promotion. By doing so he thought they would
baffle the object which they had in view; and he
considered that it was the duty of the Government to
hold the scales even, and afford fair play to the
dissemination of the truth. This had been done hitherto.
It was perfectly notorious that under the present charter
no restraint had been imposed upon the efforts of the
missionaries, and these efforts had been made, and
were making, not merely by missionaries connected
with the Church of England, but by the Church of
Scotland, and many denominations of Dissenters. If the
Government undertook to attempt the conversion of the
people of India, the only effect would be to raise up a
great body of hypocrites, seeking to curry favour by the
simulated adoption of Christianity. He considered that
the Government should confine itself to its proper
sphere of duty—the protection of all its subjects,
including, of course, the preachers of the Gospel. The
free preaching of the Gospel was all that should be
secured; and as regarded its effects, he knew himself
that from the free preaching of the missionaries many
persons had been converted, and were as sincere and
earnest Christians as any Members of that
House’[emphases added].
It is evident from the material discussed thus far that the
events surrounding the Inter Caetera in 1493 until the
Protestant Reformation, had a clear bearing on the
colonisation of Bharat by European nations, including that of
the British, whose colonial consciousness and evangelical
intent are expressly reflected in no uncertain terms in legal
instruments as well as the cogitations surrounding them—
starting from 1600 until 1853. Therefore, it can be
concluded, without reservation, that this inextricable
enmeshing of the Christian obligation to proselytise and the
civilising attitude of the British coloniser is a matter of fact,
not subjective opinion. This had a direct bearing on the
coloniser’s understanding of Indic faith systems, societal
structures, and on his education and language policies, as
shall be seen in the next chapter.
9
Christian Colonial
Consciousness, the Hindu
Religion, Caste, Tribe and
Education
Missions in India
Source: Reports of the missionary and benevolent boards and committees to the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
(1913).
Given the inherently evangelical nature of Christian
toleration practised by the European coloniser, what was
the practical impact, if any, of such toleration on his
understanding of Indic faith systems and its forms of social
organisation? Did the Christian consciousness of the
coloniser influence the shaping of his education and
language policies in Bharat? To answer these questions,
through the course of this chapter, I have relied on firsthand material, apart from the scholarly works of Dr. Jakob
De Roover, Nicolas B. Dirks1 and others who have
expounded on these questions persuasively in great detail.
At this juncture, I must clarify that my discussion on these
aspects will be brief and limited to locating such literature in
the broader context of coloniality.
In his must-read book Europe, India, and the Limits of
Secularism,2 De Roover refers to a letter from the Collector
and Magistrate of Karachi, Captain H.W. Preedy, to the
Secretary to Government of Sindh, dated 28 November
1943, which according to me, pithily captures the essence
of the British coloniser’s policy of toleration. In the letter,
Captain Preedy writes, ‘We are bound to tolerate all
religions, but not I conceive to support any but our own.’
The letter is but an illustration of the clear distinction struck
by the coloniser between toleration and support, wherein
the former applied to the indigenous faith systems of the
colonised society and the latter applied to the his own
religion, Christianity.3
Not only did this policy of Christian toleration translate to
State support being provided to the spread of Christianity
(as revealed by the legislative material discussed in the
previous chapter), it also translated to the coloniser
approaching Indic OET systems with the same anticlerical
political theology that characterised the Protestant
Reformation’s approach to the Catholic Church and Papal
authority. As stated earlier, the consequence of this
approach was that Brahmins, ‘Brahminism’ and ‘Brahminical
institutions’ replaced the Pope and Catholic Church as the
new objects of hatred and perpetual ‘reform’ at the hands of
evangelical Christianity. Since temples were predominantly
seen as ‘Brahminical institutions’, the narrative employed
against pre-Christian pagan temples in Europe was pressed
into service with respect to Hindu temples and their
practices. For instance, the charge of ‘sacred or cultic
prostitution’ that was employed by early Christians to
malign and slander pagan temples in Europe was extended
to the Devadasi practice in Bharat as well, which ultimately
resulted in the legislative abolition of the practice. Despite
its abolition, the narrative of temple prostitution continued
to be advanced in order to strengthen the perception that
the ‘Hindoo religion’ was so fundamentally debauched,
corrupt and obsessed with sex that its places of worship
were also sites of prostitution. This coupled with the
caricature of the evil Brahmin, effectively painted a picture
that women were being forced to become temple prostitutes
to pander to the dictates of the ‘Brahminical religion’.
No wonder the debates in the British Parliament
pejoratively used ‘priestcraft’4 to refer to Brahmins and
everything they subscribed to or were associated with,
especially the Dharmashastras. This is corroborated by the
view of Charles Grant, an evangelical-minded member of
the British Parliament, on the Manusmriti,5 which is as
follows:
Nothing is more plain, than that this whole fabric is the
work of a crafty and imperious priesthood, who feigned
a divine revelation and appointment, to invest their own
order, in perpetuity, with the most absolute empire over
the civil state of the Hindoos, as well as over their
minds.
De Roover argues that the Christian framework within which
the British policy of toleration towards Indic faith systems
and practices was adopted did not leave such systems
untouched. On the contrary, indigenous/Indic OET was
restructured to fit into the Christian idea of ‘religion’, which
was embraced, unfortunately, by Hindu ‘reform’ movements
as well. This translated to a doctrinal and scriptural
approach to ‘Hinduism’, that is, only those practices which
could be traced to the sacred texts of Hinduism would be
tolerated by the colonial State, while the rest would be
treated as superstitious and immoral, warranting State
interference. To support this, the coloniser drew from the
Protestant/Lockean position that struck a distinction
between ‘core’ religious practices that did not warrant State
interference, and ‘false religion’ and civil/secular aspects of
religious practices that permitted State intervention. Here
are a few educative excerpts on the said issue from De
Roover’s book:
The framework underlying Locke’s theory clarifies why it
was so important to know whether the ‘sacred laws of
the Hindu religion’ sanctioned sati and other practices.
According to this Christian religious framework, all
human souls have equal access to God and live to obey
Him. Nevertheless, the devil and his priests corrupt this
sense by imposing their fabrications as divinely revealed
commandments upon innocent believers. In order to
understand such people and go about with them, one
should find out what they believe to be God’s will for
humanity. Which specific set of laws did the Hindus
mistake for God’s revelation? This was the obsession of
early colonial scholars.6
….the toleration policy compelled colonial officials to
determine which practices were truly religious and
hence had to be tolerated. At this first level, Protestant
notions of false religion operated implicitly. Even though
the colonial government and its courts of law
approached the Hindu traditions as religion tout court,
without adding predicates of falsity, they nevertheless
smuggled in the theological distinction between true
religion as the revelation of God and false religion as
human additions to religion. In fact, the Christian
distinction between the religious, the secular, and the
idolatrous was introduced as though it concerned a
distinction internal to Hindu religion. Some practices
were accepted as truly religious, while others were
rejected as illegitimate additions to religion.
The boundary was drawn along the lines of the
Protestant division between the essentials commanded
by God in scripture and indifferent things falsely
superimposed as religion… . In its secularized form, this
division between pure religion and human additions was
viewed as a general characteristic of all religions,
including Hinduism. Since the task of locating this
boundary was displaced to the ‘scriptures’ and ‘priests’
of ‘Hindu religion’, the colonial legal system effectively
transplanted this conceptual structure into the Hindu
traditions.
Consequently, the normative framework behind the
colonial legal system compelled Hindu traditions to
internalize the Christian division between the religious,
the secular and the falsely religious… . All aspects of
Indian traditions that did not fit into the codified model
of Hindu law were rejected as illegitimate human
additions to true ‘Hindu religion’ or denounced as
ceremonies and rites that had no role to play in genuine
‘Hindu law’. Thus, these aspects were relegated to a
hidden realm of false religion.7
Simply put, toleration meant that what constituted the
‘Hindu religion’ was determined through the application of a
manifestly Christian framework. This blatantly Christian
attempt to understand ‘the Hindu religion’ also manifested
itself in the coloniser’s understanding of the fundamental
tenets or ‘laws’ of Hinduism, leading to the quest for a
Moses-like ‘lawgiver’. This quest yielded Manu, the author of
the much-reviled Manusmriti. Whether the Manusmriti, or
for that matter the Dharmashastras, constituted a religious
commandment/law, or a descriptive recordal of customs and
practices was never clearly understood by the Christian
coloniser since he was incapable of viewing the indigenous
society through an indigenous perspective. Therefore, even
conceptions of what constituted ‘religious law’ in the ‘Hindu
religion’ were introduced through a Christian lens, which
significantly affected both the coloniser’s understanding of
the native society as well as the colonialised natives’
understanding of their own culture, since the Christian idea
of seeking scriptural support for traditions was embraced by
the latter. This led to attempts at converting the Hindu
system of tradition to ‘religion’ in the Christian sense.
De Roover presents ‘the Hindu reformer’ Raja Rammohun
Roy as one the prime examples of those who actively
applied the scriptural approach to Hinduism to rid it of its
‘ills’ in the interest of ‘social reform’. Under this approach,
Roy treated the Vedas as the Hindu ‘Bible’ and attempted to
draw structural parallels between the ‘Hindu religion’ and
Christianity. On a related note, in the ensuing discussion on
the introduction of English education in Bharat, we shall see
that Roy’s views on indigenous education, its pedagogy and
its worth were no less colonialised.8
In practical terms, the application of the Christian
framework to understand what constituted ‘the Hindoo
religion’ translated to its ‘essentials’ being distilled. This had
the following two consequences that are of patent relevance
to contemporary debates surrounding Hinduism, both in
society as well as in judicial treatment:
1. The Essential Religious Practices (ERP) test, as
applied by the Indian Supreme Court in matters
involving protection of religious practices and
institutions under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution,
may be traced to the Christian colonial distinction
between essential tenets of a religion and its nonessential aspects; and
2. The application of the Christian concept of ‘religion’
to Indic OET gave rise to the debate as to whether
Hinduism was a ‘religion’ or ‘a way of life’.
I will now elaborate further upon each of these positions and
demonstrate them through a few landmark judgments of
the Supreme Court of India.
First, the application of the ERP test by the Supreme Court
broadly translates to an exercise undertaken to identify
whether a certain practice falls within the realm of religion
or in the secular realm, in order to determine the extent of
protection accorded to it from State interference under the
Constitution. This test was laid down by the Supreme Court
in the landmark judgment delivered by a seven-Judge Bench
in 1954, in the case of The Commissioner, Hindu Religious
Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Tirtha Swamiar of
Sri Shirur Mutt, popularly known as the ‘Shirur Math
Judgment’.9 This judgment was delivered in the context of a
challenge to the constitutionality of the Madras Hindu
Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1951. However,
before I proceed to discuss the Shirur Math Judgment, a
brief history of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable
Endowments Act, 1951, itself is important to demonstrate
the coloniality in the treatment of Indic religious institutions
by the independent Indian State.
Owing to the significant resources attached to temples,
the East India Company began interfering with the
administrative structures of temples citing corruption in
their administration as the primary pretext. After all, the
colonial assumption was that since heathens were
inherently corrupt, their institutions too must be dens of
corruption and avarice. This led to the British policy of
centralised collection as well as distribution of all temple
revenues within the territories under its control. The policy
also included audit of funds used by temple authorities and
bureaucratic control over temple administrators. This policy
resulted in undermining the autonomous, localised,
community-driven and self-sufficient nature of temple
administration by making it increasingly dependent on a
centralised bureaucracy. By 1789, a Board of Revenue was
established by the Company to take charge of temples in
the Madras Presidency, which was then followed by the
Madras Endowments and Escheats Regulation of 1817
whose preamble reads as follows:
Considerable endowments have been granted in money,
or by assignments of land or of the produce of the land
by the former Governments of this country as well as by
the British Government, and by individuals for the
support of mosques, Hindu temples, colleges and
choultries, and for other pious and beneficial purposes;
and … endowments [are] in many instances
appropriated, contrary to the intentions of the donors, to
the personal use of the individuals in immediate charge
and possession of such endowments; and… it is the
duty of the government to provide that such
endowments be applied according to the real intent and
will of the granter [emphasis added].
Pertinently, this regulation applied to both Hindu and Muslim
religious institutions. It was in force until 1839, when
Christian missionaries back in England started protesting
against administration of the religious institutions of
‘heathens’ by the Christian colonial government. In 1863,
the Regulation of 1817 was replaced by the Religious
Endowments Act, which applied to temples and mosques.
The 1863 Act was then replaced by the Madras Hindu
Religious Endowments Act of 1923, which was the first
legislation to apply solely to Hindu religious institutions, in
contrast to previous legislations. Perhaps, in the eyes of the
coloniser, Muslims, being ‘people of the book’, were deemed
less corrupt and immoral than idol-worshipping heathen,
and hence were exempt from State interference. In 1927,
the 1923 legislation was replaced by the Madras Hindu
Religious Endowments Act of 1926 (‘the 1927 Act’), which
too applied solely to Hindu religious institutions. The 1927
Act was in force until 1951.
It was the 1927 Act whose constitutionality was originally
challenged in writ petitions in 1951 by the Shirur Math from
Udupi (in present-day Karnataka) and the Nataraja Temple in
Chidambaram (in present-day Tamil Nadu) before the
Madras High Court in what has come to be known as the
Shirur Math case. The challenge to the 1927 Act was on the
grounds that after the Constitution came into force on 26
January 1950, the framework of the 1927 Act had to be
tested on the anvils of the Constitution. During the
pendency of the writ petitions, the then Madras government
repealed the 1927 Act and passed the Madras Hindu
Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1951, which too,
as the name reflects, applied exclusively to Hindu religious
institutions. Accordingly, the writ petitions were amended to
challenge the 1951 Act on the ground that it violated
Articles 19(1)(f), 25, 26 and 27 of the Constitution. The
central provisions of the Act were struck down by the
Madras High Court in 1951 as being unconstitutional, and
the judgment of the High Court was largely upheld by the
Supreme Court in 1954 in its landmark Shirur Math
Judgment.
Ironically, the very same provisions of the 1951 Madras
HRCE Act, which were struck down by the Supreme Court as
unconstitutional in 1954, were reintroduced in sum and
substance in the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable
Endowments Act, 1959, which is still in force to date. These
reintroduced provisions, along with the corresponding
provisions of the HRCE legislations of Andhra Pradesh and
Puducherry, are currently under challenge before the
Supreme Court in a Writ Petition filed in 2012 by the late
Swami Dayananda Saraswathi, founder of Arsha Vidya
Gurukulam. Clearly, the Indian State in general has no
qualms or compunctions in circumventing or contravening
the verdict of even the highest court of the land when it
comes to Indic religious institutions.
This is but one of the examples of the manner in which
concepts, such as ‘secularism’ and ‘equality’, have played
out in so-called independent, decolonised Bharat—to the
extreme detriment of its indigenous consciousness. This is
in stark contrast to the Christian secularism of Europe which
protects Christian institutions from State interference. In
other words, the coloniality of the Indian State is evidenced
by the fact that as opposed to preserving and respecting the
space of Indic consciousness, which would have been
consistent with the policy of Christian toleration and
secularism of the coloniser that accorded primacy to
Christianity, the Indian State acts as the successor of the
coloniser in its stepmotherly treatment of native
consciousness. Consequently, non-Indic institutions and
practices enjoy better protection from State interference
than their Indic counterparts. This is supported by the fact
that the Indian State has enacted at least 15 Hindu-specific
legislations that enable State control and facilitate State
entrenchment in Hindu institutions. Clearly, this is
attributable to the Indian State’s embracing of the colonial
assumption that the ‘Hindoo’ is corrupt, debauched and
backward, especially if Brahmin, and therefore, such
institutions must be under State control in order to ‘reform’
them.
Coming back to the Supreme Court’s Shirur Math
Judgment in the context of the ERP test, it continues to be
the ruling precedent on the interpretation of religious versus
secular under Article 25(2)(a) of the Constitution to date,
which led to the formulation of the Test. At this juncture, it
becomes important to broadly understand the intent and
import of Article 25, which will help better comprehend the
judgment. As we shall see, it could be argued based on the
language of Article 25 that the distinction between
‘religious’ and ‘secular’ is directly embedded in it, which
resonates with the Christian or Lockean position.
Article 25(1) of the Constitution guarantees to all persons
the freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess,
practise and propagate ‘religion’ subject to public order,
morality, health and other provisions of that part of the
Constitution. Article 25(2)(a) enables the State to make laws
‘regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or
other secular activity which may be associated with
religious practice’. Effectively, Article 25(2)(a) strikes the
very same distinction between the religious and the secular
that is inherent to the Christian framework. I would find it
exceedingly difficult to dismiss this as mere coincidence.
Whether the language of this provision is attributable to
Christian colonial consciousness of the framers of the
Constitution and whether they were aware of its Christian
normative framework are aspects that will be explored in
the sequel to this book.
What is, however, relevant for the current discussion is
that it is this distinction between the religious and the
secular that enables the Indian State to enact laws that
regulate religious and charitable activities. While this power
is available to the Indian State in relation to institutions of
all faiths, thus far it has chosen to exercise this power
primarily in relation to Hindu institutions. The claimed
ideological proclivities of no dispensation has made a
difference to this pattern, underscoring the presence of
colonial consciousness across the political spectrum with the
difference being in degree, at best.
Here is the relevant extract from the Shirur Math
Judgement that captures the genesis of the Essential
Religious Practices Test based on the religious versus
secular distinction reflected in the language of Article 25(2)
(a):
The learned Attorney-General lays stress upon clause
(2)(a) of the article and his contention is that all secular
activities, which may be associated with religion but do
not really constitute an essential part of it, are
amenable to State regulation.
The contention formulated in such broad terms
cannot, we think, be supported. In the first place, what
constitutes the essential part of a religion is primarily to
be ascertained with reference to the doctrines of that
religion itself. If the tenets of any religious sect of the
Hindus prescribe that offerings of food should be given
to the idol at particular hours of the day, that periodical
ceremonies should be performed in a certain way at
certain periods of the year or that there should be daily
recital of sacred texts or ablations to the sacred fire, all
these would be regarded as parts of religion and the
mere fact that they involve expenditure of money or
employment of priests and servants or the use of
marketable commodities would not make them secular
activities partaking of a commercial or economic
character; all of them are religious practices and should
be regarded as matters of religion within the meaning of
article 26(b). What article 25(2)(a) contemplates is not
regulation by the State of religious practices as such,
the freedom of which is guaranteed by the Constitution
except when they run counter to public order, health
and morality, but regulation of activities which are
economic, commercial or political in their character
though they are associated with religious practices
[emphases added].
As is evident, the above test was originally formulated to
distinguish between the religious and the secular in the
context of determining the scope of State powers to
regulate the secular aspects of a religious institution under
Article 25(2)(a). However, it would ultimately morph in
subsequent judgments of the Supreme Court into a test to
determine the ‘essential aspects’ of a religion for the very
purpose of the enjoyment of fundamental religious freedoms
under Article 25(1). In other words, thenceforth, the State or
more often than not, constitutional Courts, would determine
what constituted ‘essential’ aspects of a religion despite
professing to be secular bodies with no institutionalised
training in the OET of any faith. The irony is compounded by
the fact that the religious versus secular divide was
conceived of in the Christian faith to limit the scope of State
interference in matters of religion, which, in Bharat, has
yielded diametrically opposite results particularly with
respect to Indic faith systems.
Even if the ERP test may validly be applied to other
scripture-based faiths that are closer to the coloniser’s faith,
the application of such a test to Indic OETs, which are not
fully bound by scripture, is to impose the Christian
theological framework on indigenous faith systems. The fact
that native faith systems are not fully bound by scripture
and have evolved as much through custom, practice and
context flummoxed the Christian European coloniser just as
much as it seems to confound contemporary Indian
institutions, including the judiciary. It bears noting that this
colonialised understanding of Indic faith systems forms the
bedrock of the eternal project of ‘reform’ of the ‘Hindu
religion’ and society in ‘independent’ Bharat.
Coming to the second issue of whether Hinduism is a
‘religion’ or a way of life, the debate invariably ends up
stoking emotions for several reasons. The adherents of Indic
faith systems are concerned, and rightly so, that the
treatment of Hinduism as ‘a way of life’ and not a ‘religion’
by the Indian State might deprive them of their fundamental
religious freedoms under the Constitution that are
guaranteed to the followers of other religions. At the same
time, they do not want ‘Sanatana Dharma’ or ‘Dharma’ to
be equated with the Christian or Islamic idea of ‘religion’,
again rightly so, since their OETs are very different. Nor do
they want to be told that the ‘Hindu religion’ is essentially a
Christian colonial construct because they understand that
by calling it a colonial construct, some call into question the
very precolonial existence of Dharmic belief systems and
the notion of Dharmic oneness underlying the various Hindu
sampradayas. There is more than an element of truth in
these strands, each of which warrants unpacking.
First, it is important to distinguish between (a) the need
for legal/constitutional approximation of Indic faith systems
as ‘religion’ to ensure the enjoyment of fundamental
freedoms and (b) OET-based differences between Indic faith
systems and the coloniser’s religion. Interestingly, this
brings out the coloniality inherent in the mechanical
application of the concept of ‘religion’ as well as the use of
the word ‘religion’ in contemporary legal and constitutional
framework, both domestic and international. Whether this
indicates the acceptance of the colonial worldview by the
framers of the Constitution, again, will be discussed in the
sequel to this book; however, what is evident is the problem
underlying the use of colonial linguistics and the
connotations they carry when extended to Indic OET
systems. Therefore, the existence of this problem must be
acknowledged and a decolonial approach to it must be
employed.
Second, in so far as OET is concerned, the adherents of
Indic OET systems are justified in taking the position that
their OETs are vastly different from that of Christianity, and
therefore, except for the purposes of enjoyment of equal
rights under the Constitution, the conceptual and theoretical
frameworks of Indic OET and Christian OET are not and
cannot be treated as the same. It is in this context that the
assertion is typically made that ‘Hinduism’, given its
approach to the concept of soul and consciousness, its
relationship with nature, and its diverse and federal
character reflected by the nature of the Indic civilisation, is
vastly different from monochromatic, monotheistic and
centrally organised religions, such as Islam and Christianity.
It is this distinction that leads to the widely misunderstood
summation that Hinduism is more a ‘way of life’ and
therefore, comparisons with Christianity and Islam are
misplaced.
This summation can be traced to the judgments of the
Supreme Court of India in Shastri Yagnapurushdasji and
others v. Muldas Bhundardas vaishya and another10 and
Bramchari Sidheswar Bhai & ors. v. State of West Bengal,11
wherein the Apex Court distinguished Hinduism from the
Islamic and Christian understanding of ‘religion’. A reading
of the said judgments reveals that, surprisingly, the position
of the Supreme Court is largely consistent with the
decolonial position that Indic faith systems are distinct from
both Abrahamic religions, and yet qualify for protection
under the constitution as ‘the Hindu religion’. In other
words, the Supreme Court, while recognising that Sanatana
Dharma cannot be understood through the Abrahamic
construct of ‘religion’, has not taken away the right of
Dharmic OET systems to be treated as ‘religion’ for the
purposes of enjoyment and exercise of constitutionally
guaranteed fundamental freedoms.
Extracted below are a few relevant excerpts from Shastri
Yagnapurushdasji judgment:
When we think of the Hindu religion, we find it difficult,
if not impossible, to define Hindu religion or even
adequately describe it. Unlike other religions in the
world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one
prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not
subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any
one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set
of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not
appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any
religion or creed. It may broadly be described as a way
of life and nothing more.
Whilst we are dealing with this broad and
comprehensive, aspect of Hindu religion, it may be
permissible to enquire what according to this religion, is
the ultimate goal of humanity? It is the release and
freedom from the unceasing cycle of births and rebirths;
Moksha or Nirvana, which is the ultimate aim of Hindu
religion and philosophy, represents the state of absolute
absorption and assimilation of the individual soul with
the infinite. What are the means to attain this end? On
this vital issue, there is great divergence of views; some
emphasise the importance of Gyan or knowledge, while
others extol the virtues of Bhakti or devotion; and yet
others insist upon the paramount importance of the
performance of duties with a heart full of devotion and
mind inspired by true knowledge. In this sphere again,
there is diversity of opinion, though all are agreed about
the ultimate goal. Therefore, it would be inappropriate
to apply the traditional tests in determining the extent
of the jurisdiction of Hindu religion. It can be safely
described as a way of life based on certain basic
concepts to which we have already referred. Tilak faced
this complex and difficult problem of defining or at least
describing adequately Hindu religion and he evolved a
working formula which may be regarded as fairly
adequate and satisfactory. Said Tilak: ‘Acceptance of the
Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the
means or ways to salvation are diverse and realisation
of the truth that the number of gods to be worshipped is
large, that indeed is the distinguishing feature of Hindu
religion’(1). This definition brings out succinctly the
broad distinctive features of Hindu religion. It is
somewhat remarkable that this broad sweep of Hindu
religion has been eloquently described by Toynbee. Says
Toynbee: ‘When we pass from the plane of social
practice to the plane of intellectual outlook, Hinduism
too comes out well by comparison with the religions and
ideologies of the South-West Asian group. In contrast to
these Hinduism has the same outlook as the preChristian and pre-Muslim religions and philosophies of
the Western half of the old world. Like them, Hinduism
takes it for granted that there is more than one valid
approach to truth and to salvation and that these
different approaches are not only compatible with each
other, but are complementary.’
The Constitution-makers were fully conscious of this
broad and comprehensive character of Hindu religion;
and so, while guaranteeing the fundamental right to
freedom of religion, Explanation II to Art. 25 has made it
clear that in sub-clause (b) of clause (2), the reference
to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to
persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion,
and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be
construed
accordingly.
Consistently
with
this
constitutional provision, the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955;
the Hindu Succession Act, 1956; the Hindu Minority and
Guardianship Act, 1956; and the Hindu Adoptions and
Maintenance Act, 1956 have extended the application of
these Acts to all persons who can be regarded as Hindus
in this broad and comprehensive sense.
The above-mentioned judgment was delivered by the
Supreme Court in the context of the Swaminarayan sect
taking the position that its followers did not profess the
Hindu religion, a contention which the Court rejected. When
a similar position was sought to be taken by the
Ramakrishna Mission in Bramchari Sidheswar Bhai & ors. v.
State of West Bengal, the Supreme Court reiterated the
position set out in Shastri Yagnapurushdasji. Therefore, at
least in two landmark judgments, the Supreme Court has
recognised that Dharmic OET is different from the Christian
and Islamic OETs, and that its approximation as ‘religion’ is
only for the purposes of equal enjoyment of fundamental
religious freedoms under the Constitution.
Moving to the next limb, that is, colonial reshaping of Indic
faith systems, while it is true that the Christian coloniser did
seek to reconstruct the Indic OET by applying the Christian
standard of ‘religion’, it would be incorrect to state that Indic
sects or sampradayas did not exist or lacked unity under the
umbrella of Sanatana Dharma prior to colonisation. Simply
stated, the coloniser’s attempt to redefine ‘the Hindu
religion’ cannot and does not render ‘Dharma’ or ‘Dharmic
unity’ an artificial colonial construct. On this specific subject,
Dr. S.N. Balagangadhara12 is of the view that be it ‘Hinduism’
‘Buddhism’, or ‘Jainism’, each of these is a colonial construct
in an empirical sense, but not in the epistemological sense.
In other words, the existence of Dharmic OET systems or
sampradayas obviously predates the Christian European
coloniser, while only their reconstruction as ‘religions’ in the
Christian sense is attributable to him. Critically, this must be
understood in the context of the global application of the
concept of ‘religion’ by Christian Europe or the West to
approximate the nature of non-Christian or non-Abrahamic
indigenous faith systems in order to make sense of them
through a Christian theological framework. Therefore, the
reconstruction of indigenous OET systems on the lines of
‘religion’ is a global consequence of European colonisation,
not limited to Indic OET systems, and this does not take
away from the precolonial antiquity of Sanatana Dharma.
On this aspect, the views of Dr. Balagandhara and Dr.
Roover, and the views of decolonial scholars, such as Nelson
Maldonado-Torres, 13 echo one another. According to
Maldonado-Torres, ‘the concept of religion most used in the
West by scholars and laypeople alike is a specifically
modern concept forged in the context of imperialism and
colonial expansion’. He even goes a step further to criticise
the postcolonial school for having reinforced this by
according a special place to ‘secular’ authors from Europe
and the Third World over the views of native practitioners of
indigenous faith systems. Extracted below is an excerpt
from his work on the subject14:
Postcolonial theory has made some contributions to the
understanding of the links between religion, modernity,
and coloniality, but it has tended to side with modern
secularism in its characterization of religion, and it has
equally privileged conversations with European and, to
some extent, Third World secular authors. That is, the
views of religious thinkers themselves, and experiences
grounded in religious practices, rituals, narratives, or
forms of organization, tend to be less present than the
perspectives of secular authors in the understanding of
the meaning of religion, modernity, or coloniality.
Another tendency in postcolonial theory, due in part to
the collective impact of renowned theorists, such as
Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, has
been to identify sources for postcolonial theorizing in
the specific histories of eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury English and French colonialism and in the
regions of the Middle East and South Asia. Less
attention has been paid to fifteenth- to seventeenthcentury formations of coloniality, and to colonies in the
West, where the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch,
and more recently the United States, among other
imperial powers, have had enduring influences. One of
the consequences of this is that religious studies
scholars who are in conversation with post-colonial
theory tend to be well versed in the postcolonial critique
of Orientalism, but much less informed about the
theorization of Occidentalism or Americanity.
This is yet another reason why the decolonial approach is
better than the postcolonial in the critical realm of religion,
since the latter privileges modern secularism without
exploring or acknowledging its Christian OET foundations
and applies the construct of ‘religion’ as well as ‘secularism’
to native OET systems. According to Balagangadhara, De
Roover and Sarah Claerhout,15 the application of this
framework can be traced to the Christian premise ‘that
religion would exist among all nations, because God had
gifted religion to humanity at the time of creation’. In fact,
these scholars take the considered position that the
application of Christian theology led to misplaced
deductions which pass off as historical facts, such as
‘Brahmins are the priests of Hinduism’ or ‘Buddhism was a
reform movement against Brahmanism and its caste
hierarchy’. The following is a relevant excerpt from a paper
by Dr. Roover and Claerhout,16 which captures the decolonial
question in the realm of ‘religion’:
One could simply accept that ‘Hinduism’ does not name
a unitary phenomenon, but picks out a super set that
includes many different sets of practices and beliefs....
One could even add that the claim that Hinduism cannot
be one religion, because it is not a coherent unit,
presupposes a Christian model of religion as a coherent
doctrinal entity and then assesses Hinduism according
to this model.
Did Indians, with their own background framework and
cultural experience, understand what the British meant
when the latter said ‘religion’, ‘law’, ‘scripture’, ‘priests’
or ‘caste’? Did the British and other Europeans, with
their specific background framework and cultural
experience, understand Indians when they spoke of
‘dharma’, ‘shastra’, ‘puja’, ‘brahmanas’ or ‘jati’?
Whenever Europeans invoked notions like ‘religion’,
‘worship’, ‘gods’ or ‘priesthood’ in order to describe
India, their reasoning operated against a background
theology, which had determined the semantic content
and systematic relations of these terms. Over many
centuries, this background theology had shaped natural
language use in European vernaculars. Naturally,
Indians had their own cultural experiences, linguistic
practices and semantic schemes. Trying to make sense
of the queries of the coloniser, Indians learned to use
English-language words (‘religion’, ‘revelation’, ‘God’,
‘worship’, ‘priest’, ‘idolatry’), without having access to
the background theology that related these terms to
each other in a systematic way.
For instance, while puja rituals are not in any sense
the equivalent of worship in Christianity, Europeans
misunderstood
these
rituals
as
worship
and
mistranslated ‘puja’ as ‘worship’. In the next step,
Indians learned English and accepted that ‘worship’
meant ‘puja’, without understanding what worship is in
Christianity and without having access to the linguistic
practices and conceptual schemes, which related this
notion of worship to other theological concepts like God,
idolatry and religion. Given our current lack of insight
into this process, we cannot grasp the distortions that
occurred when the term ‘worship’ was mapped onto
‘puja’.
A similar process occurred for all such appropriations
of English-language terms and theological notions. As
Indians took over these words, their original meanings
were distorted, accordingly as European-language terms
were mapped onto terms and semantic schemes from
Indian languages (e.g., ‘dharma’, ‘apaurusheya’, ‘deva’,
‘puja’, ‘purohit’, ‘murtipuja’).
This extract succinctly highlights the problematic use of
Christian colonial linguistics or semantics and the underlying
Protestant experience to describe and understand Indic
systems, institutions and practices, which results in the
superimposition of the Christian framework on native
consciousness. In this regard, once again the Shirur Math
Judgment is useful to demonstrate the way Indian
constitutional courts have applied Christian colonial
linguistics to Indic institutions and practices.
In the Shirur Math Judgment, apart from setting out the
ERP test based on the religious versus secular divide, the
Supreme Court also laid down the criteria for what
constitutes a ‘religious denomination’ under Article 26,
which is the law on this issue to date. Here is the relevant
excerpt from the judgment:
As regards article 26, the first question is, what is the
precise meaning or connotation of the expression
‘religious denomination’ and whether a Math could
come within this expression. The word ‘denomination’
has been defined in the Oxford Dictionary to mean ‘a
collection of individuals classed together under the
same name: a religious sect or body having a common
faith and Organisation and designated by a distinctive
name’. It is well known that the practice of setting up
Maths as centres of the logical teaching was started by
Shri Sankaracharya and was followed by various
teachers since then. After Sankara, came a galaxy of
religious teachers and philosophers who founded the
different sects and sub-sects of the Hindu religion that
we find in India at the present day. Each one of such
sects or sub-sects can certainly be balled a religious
denomination, as it is designated by a distinctive name
—in many cases it is the name of the founder—and has
a common faith and common spiritual organization. The
followers of Ramanuja, who are known by the name of
Shri Vaishnavas, undoubtedly constitute a religious
denomination; and so do the followers of Madhwacharya
and other religious teachers. It is a fact well established
by tradition that the eight Udipi Maths were founded by
Madhwacharya himself and the trustees and the
beneficiaries of these Maths profess to be followers of
that teacher. The High Court has found that the Math in
question is in charge of the Sivalli Brahmins who
constitute a section of the followers of Madhwacharya.
As article 26 contemplates not merely a religious
denomination but also a section thereof, the Math or the
spiritual fraternity represented by it can legitimately
come within the purview of this article [emphasis
added].
There are multiple problems with this excerpt, the first of
which is that, as opposed to using Indic commentaries to
understand the contours of a ‘sampradaya’ from a Dharmic
perspective in the context of a Dharmic institution, the
Supreme Court chose to rely on the Oxford Dictionary. This
is because the language in which the Constitution is
understood and interpreted is the British coloniser’s native
tongue, English. Second, the Oxford Dictionary of the 1950s
surely could not have been expected to reflect anything
other than the Christian understanding of things, in
particular, religious concepts. Therefore, while it could be
argued that the Supreme Court was only operating within
the rules of interpretation accepted in English law (which is
its standard practice even today), the fact is that owing to
the Christian backdrop of the coloniser’s lexicon, the Court
unconsciously applied a manifestly Christian concept and
definition of religious denomination to a Dharmic institution.
After all, as discussed in the first section of the book, the
concept of a religious denomination is a direct consequence
of the Protestant Reformation, which led to the recognition
of Lutheranism and Calvinism as the other two permanent
Christian
religious
denominations
alongside
Roman
Catholicism.
This clearly brings out the problem with the application of
Christian colonial linguistics, semantics and framework to
Indic institutions, groups and practices since those
sampradayas which do not satisfy the test prescribed by the
Supreme Court for a ‘religious denomination’, but can
otherwise broadly be considered sects, stand to lose out on
the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 26 that
envisages institutional religious autonomy of sects/groups.
In this regard, as someone who has been a part of matters
of civilisational importance before the Supreme Court, I
have experienced, first-hand, the problem with such an
application of a Christian framework to a Hindu religious
institution, which resulted in the institution being denied the
status of a denominational institution and, accordingly, the
freedoms under Article 26.
Interestingly, on the issue of interpretation of a ‘religious
denomination’, the following is the difference between the
Madras High Court’s position in the Shirur Math case in its
judgment of 1951 and the Supreme Court’s position in 1954
in the very same case. Extracted below is the definition of
religious denomination from the Webster Dictionary used by
the Madras High Court in 1951:
of action of naming from or after something;
giving a name to, calling by a name;
a characteristic or qualifying name given to a thing or
class of things;
that by which anything is called;
an appellation, designation or title;
a collection of individuals classed together under the
same name; now almost always specifically a religious
sect or body having a common faith and organisation
and designated by a distinctive name [emphasis
added].
While the Madras High Court’s verdict enumerated at least
seven possible definitions of religious denomination from
the Webster dictionary, including the last two, namely ‘a
collection of individuals classed together under the same
name’ and ‘now almost always specifically a religious sect
or body having a common faith and organisation and
designated by a distinctive name’, which were separated by
a semicolon, the Supreme Court relied on the Oxford version
which defined it as ‘a collection of individuals classed
together under the same name: a religious sect or body
having a common faith and Organisation and designated by
a distinctive name’, which connected the two parts with a
colon.17 This difference in punctuation has made a world of
difference, since the Supreme Court appears to have
latched on to the narrower definition which, apart from
being Christian-inspired, has effectively truncated the group
rights of Dharmic sampradayas. It remains to be seen if
such issues of colonial linguistics/semantics receive due
attention from the Supreme Court in pending matters of
civilisational/Dharmic importance.
What emerges from a reading of the Shirur Math Judgment
along with the judgments in Shastri Yagnapurushdasji and
Bramchari Sidheswar Bhai is a curious mixture wherein the
colonial framework enmeshes with a partly colonial and
partly decolonial understanding of native/Indic OET systems.
As stated earlier, whether or not this duality has its genesis
in the Constitution and its making will be examined in the
sequel to this book in greater detail.
The other colonial attitude that the Indian State appears
to have embraced is the need to codify and systematise
indigenous ‘personal laws’ in order to make them ‘uniform’
and ‘consistent’, in the process ossifying and centralising
them. The ‘Hindu Code’ legislations passed between 1955
and 1956, which resulted in the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu
Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and
Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, are cases in point. In
the process of this codification, the Indian State, which
presides over a civilisational society that values context,
subjectivity and custom, has stifled the evolution of custom
at the altar of uniformity, homogeneity and codification.
This was highlighted and analysed powerfully by Dr.
Madhu Kishwar in her article titled ‘Codified Hindu Law:
Myth and Reality’.18 Dr. Kishwar captured brilliantly the
colonial obsession with codification of ‘Hindu law’, which the
first government of independent Bharat under Jawaharlal
Nehru, ably aided by Dr. Ambedkar’s earlier work on the
subject, took forward with the zeal of a new convert. Here
are a few instructive excerpts from her article that capture
the Indian State’s colonial consciousness as reflected in its
bull-headed pursuit of codification and standardisation of
Hindu ‘personal laws’ in the early years of its independence.
Interestingly, although she does not use the terms
coloniality or decoloniality, Dr. Kishwar clearly recognises its
presence and influence in the Indian State’s mental
constitution:
Why then the insistence on codifying and unifying Hindu
law? There seems to be a fascination, among the social
reformers in particular and the English educated elite in
general, with uniformity as a vehicle of national unity. In
the vein of British distaste for polytheism and
glorification of monotheism as somehow intrinsically
morally superior, the reformers express disgust with the
diversity of Hindu law as practised in different regions
and with its complexities. The reformers perceive
themselves as modernising woodcutters wielding the
axe against the mystifying jungle of Hindu law… .
Time and again, the reformers put forward the
argument that uniformity is necessary, without
explaining why, simply assuming that uniformity is an
un-questioned good. One such typical statement by S C
Shah: ‘We have had Hindu law varying from place to
place, province to province, having all kinds of local
customs and family customs ... it is a very great thing
that we will, for the first time, have a uniform code at
least for the Hindu community.’ All who questioned that
uniformity was a great thing were labelled and
dismissed by the ‘progressives’ led by Nehru as
reactionaries.
Some argued that diversity was not itself an evil, and,
more important, that Hindu law had not been imposed
by the state or other authority from above but had
grown from popular consensus and that this character
should be preserved.
This perception of the state as an instrument of social
reform to be imposed on people without creating a
social consensus derives essentially from the norms of
functioning inherent in colonialist state machinery and
ideology. The English educated elite among the Indians
had faithfully imbibed the colonial state’s ideology,
projecting itself as the most progressive instrument of
social reform, failing to realise that many of these
enactments (such as, the Sharada Act) remained paper
tigers of which people were not even aware. The
contempt for Indian society, labelled backward,
uncivilised and degenerate, was all pervasive. Notice
the words used by Ambedkar: ‘....some communities like
the Hindu community needed the reform so badly- it
was a slum clearance’.
This discussion based on scholarly literature is sufficient for
the purview of this book to demonstrate the manifest hand
of Christian European coloniality, ‘the hand of G_d’, so to
speak, in the reshaping of Indic consciousness. What is
important to note is the critical similarity and equally critical
difference between Middle Eastern coloniality and European
coloniality. While both believe in the concept of ‘false
religion’ in the context of native societies which do not
share their faith, the former destroys ‘false religions’ root
and branch through overt subjugation, while the latter
attempts to convert, failing which, it subtly moulds and
reconstructs other faith systems in its own image by
applying its framework to bring them in line with Christian
consciousness. The former’s direct and visible aggression
invited fierce resistance from Indic consciousness, while the
latter’s attempt to Christianise it through its policy of
toleration and secularism resulted in the integration of the
native Indic consciousness in a Eurocentric ‘modern’ global
order. This has made it much more difficult for Indic
consciousness and its way of life to be understood on its
own terms without suffering labels, such as ‘ancient’,
‘traditional’, ‘conservative’, and the like. Critically, De
Roover points out that this model of Christian reconstruction
of indigenous faith systems and societies has been
secularised, and goes by the name of ‘secularism’, wherein
the colonial framework with its distinct religious/scriptural
origin is projected as ‘universal’ for all societies and
cultures.
I will elaborate on the British coloniser’s movement from
the policy of toleration to adoption of secularism in the next
section where I address the period between 1858 and 1919,
but first, the impact of the coloniser’s Christian
reconstructionism on native OET needs to be understood.
Every society’s subjective experience leads to the
formation of its own views on ontology, which ultimately
forms the basis of its epistemology and theology, including
its social organisation. In this regard, broadly speaking, the
ontology of Indic consciousness rests, among other things,
on the belief in the laws of karma and rebirth which
manifest in its knowledge production structures, its faith
systems, its relationship with nature and its societal
structures. The Christianisation of Indic consciousness
through the use of a secularised Christian framework has
impacted not just the external edifice of the Indic society
but has also pushed to extinction specific groups,
communities and ways of life, which have long preserved
the indigenous ontology upon which the civilisation was
built. Specifically, the application of the Protestant
Reformation’s hatred of clergy to Brahmins and
‘Brahminism’,
who
the
Christian
coloniser
and
accompanying missionary groups categorically reviled as
impediments to the Christianisation of Bharat, has ensured
that a significant cross-section of the native society today,
regardless of stated political or ideological proclivities (Left,
Right or Centre) now shares the coloniser’s hatred of
Brahmins and ‘Brahminism’. This shared hatred of an Indic
sub-identity based on colonial versions of Bharat’s history
and consciousness is proof of coloniality at work.
Further, in my opinion, it is also proof of the success of the
European coloniser’s approach, since he managed to
achieve what the Middle Eastern coloniser could not. The
European coloniser ensured that even the indigenous
discourse on consciousness-related issues takes place within
a secularised Christian framework, albeit unconsciously,
since the natives treat the coloniser’s version of their history
as Bible speak, pun intended. When an internal conversation
among natives happens within a framework rooted in
foreign consciousness, which is accepted as being
universally valid without its premise being examined or
critiqued,
it
effectively
proves
the
deep-seated
entrenchment of colonial consciousness.
This observation may invite predictable ad hominem
reactions and caste-based epithets, which would only prove
my point of ingrained coloniality in the native discourse. It
would demonstrate how the varnashrama system and Indic
knowledge traditions have been successfully boxed in the
colonial category of ‘caste’, which takes us to the next
related sub-issues of caste and tribe.
The Colonial Categories of Caste and Tribe
That ‘caste’ is the product of the reconstructionist attitude
of the Christian European coloniser in the realm of religion
and social organisation is again evidenced by scholarly
literature. The literature demonstrates that the coloniser’s
ethnocentric approach to social organisation was foisted on
the Indic society as in other colonised indigenous societies,
which gave birth to colonial identities, such as ‘caste’19 and
‘tribe’, 20 through conflation of Indic lexicon, such as varna
and jati, with caste. On the subject of caste as a colonial
construct, Nicholas B. Dirks’ Castes of Mind: Colonialism and
the Making of Modern India21 charts the evolution of caste as
we know it today, as a marker of identity, starting from the
Portuguese, who introduced the term ‘casta’ to describe the
Hindu social structure, which was institutionalised under the
British through the creation of an ethnographic state in
Bharat. While I do not fully agree with some of the views
expressed by Dirk, given my position as a learner and not
an expert on the subject, I will limit my agreement to his
central thesis which is captured in the following excerpt
from the book:
This book will ask why it is that caste has become for so
many the core symbol of community in India, whereas
for others, even in serious critique, caste is still the
defining feature of Indian social organization. As we
shall see, views of caste differ markedly: from those who
see it as a religious system to those who view it as
merely social or economic; from those who view it as
the Indian equivalent of community to those who see it
as the primary impediment to community. But an
extraordinary range of commentators, from James Mill to
Herbert Risley, from Hegel to Weber, from G.S. Ghurye
to M.N. Srinivas, from Louis Dumont to McKim Marriott,
from E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker to B.R. Ambedkar, from
Gandhi to Nehru, among many others who will populate
the text that follows, accept that caste—specifically
caste forms of hierarchy, whether valorized or despised
—is somehow fundamental to Indian civilization, Indian
culture, and Indian tradition.22
This book will address this question by suggesting that
caste, as we know it today, is not in fact some
unchanged survival of ancient India, not some single
system that reflects a core civilizational value, not a
basic expression of Indian tradition. Rather, I will argue
that caste (again, as we know it today) is a modern
phenomenon, that it is, specifically, the product of a
historical encounter between India and Western colonial
rule. By this I do not mean to imply that it was simply
invented by the too clever British, now credited with so
many imperial patents that what began as colonial
critique has turned into another form of imperial
adulation. But I am suggesting that it was under the
British that ‘caste’ became a single term capable of
expressing, organizing, and above all ‘systematizing’
India’s diverse forms of social identity, community, and
organization. This was achieved through an identifiable
(if contested) ideological canon as the result of a
concrete encounter with colonial modernity during two
hundred years of British domination. In short,
colonialism made caste what it is today. It produced the
conditions that made possible the opening lines of this
book, by making caste the central symbol of Indian
society… [emphases added].
While the book’s focus on the colonial creation of ‘caste’
makes it a must-read, what is of relevance to the discussion
at hand is Dirks’ unequivocal and extensive identification of
the role of Christian missionaries as the British coloniser’s
go-to ethnographers of Bharat and how they saw the ‘caste
system’, in particular Brahmins, as the chief impediment to
the Christianisation of Bharat. In this regard, he cites the
influential work of French Catholic missionary Abbe Dubois,
titled Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of
the People of India, and of Their Institutions, Religious and
Civil, which was published in 1816. This book was treated as
the most comprehensive authority on the caste system, so
much so that the Madras government bought the copyright
for the book from Dubois for a fortune, which provided him
with a source of regular pension for years. In fact, William
Bentinck, the then Governor of Madras, showered effusive
praise on Dubois’ work. Following are Dirks’ views on the
‘anthropological service’ provided by Dubois to the British
administration in Bharat and its use for the purpose of
conversion23:
Dubois performed an anthropological service to the
British rulers of India, doing so in part because as a
French Jesuit missionary he was thought to be able to
cross social worlds far more readily than the imperial
British themselves. But, as was true with all missionary
perspectives, social worlds were crossed in order to
convert souls, a social fact that led to very strong views
on the subject of caste.
.… As we shall see, much early ‘colonial’ ethnography
was in fact written by missionaries, who observed Indian
society more closely than did British officials, but
experienced it in relation to their primary concern with
Christian conversion. Dubois was one of the first such
missionary ethnographers and, as Bentick duly noted, a
great authority at a time when the colonial
administration knew so little [emphasis added].
Dirks elucidates in great detail how the missionary role in
ethnography resulted in the creation of ‘criminal castes’,
‘martial castes’,24 ‘martial races’ and ‘tribes’, all with a view
to harvest more souls for Christ and also to identify groups
whose loyalty to the British coloniser could be trusted. The
use of ‘Aryan races’ in George MacMunn’s The Martial Races
of India, published in 1933,25 too is underscored for its
ethnocentrism based on missionary ethnography and white
supremacism based on Christian OET. This is evident from
MacMunn’s belief that the martial races were ‘largely the
product of the original white (Aryan) races’ and that ‘the
white invaders in the days of their early supremacy started
the caste system, as a protection, it is believed, against the
devastating effect on moral and ethics of miscegenation
with Dravidian and aboriginal peoples’. Dirks also highlights
the pivotal role played by missionaries, such as Robert
Caldwell, in fanning ‘virulent anti-Brahmanism’ owing to
which ‘he became an extraordinary figure in the history of
the Dravidian movement’ in southern Bharat. Given the
connections drawn by Dirks whose relevance to raging
contemporary debates are self-evident, I would urge readers
to read his work before forming their views on the subject of
‘caste’ and to recognise the deep-seated coloniality in
contemporary perceptions of caste.
Similarly, on the creation of the ‘tribal’ identity, the works
of S.K. Chaube and Susana B.C. Devalle, which shed light on
the creation of this colonial categorisation, are a must-read.
While Chaube’s work Hill Politics in Northeast India is of
immense value in understanding the nexus between the
creation of the tribal identity with specific reference to the
Northeast and the facilitation of conversion of ‘tribes’ to
Christianity, Devalle’s work on the invention of the tribal
construct as a colonial category provides broader
perspective on the same lines as Dirks’ work on caste.
Sample this introduction from Devalle’s work26:
Tribe has been the most salient category used in the
study of Indian indigenous ethnic formations: the adivasi
societies. It is my contention that the tribal construct in
India is a colonial category and that it formed part of the
colonial legitimizing ideology. As such this category
operated as a device to catalogue conquered
populations, to reformulate control policies and to
facilitate the incorporation of these populations into the
colonial system. The ideology of tribe did not
disintegrate in India with the end of colonialism. It has
been reformulated in the context of the Hindu model of
caste-ideology,
a
context
observable
in
the
conceptualization of adivasi ‘backwardness’ and in the
alternatives espoused for social mobility
.... In sum, I will argue that there were no ‘tribes’ in
Jharkhand until the European perception of Indian reality
constructed them and colonial authorities gave them
their administrative sanction. In fact, the tribal paradigm
is ill-suited to categorize both past and present adivasi
societies. In Jharkhand, these societies arc now basically
peasant societies inserted in a class society, possessing
at the same time specific ethno-cultural styles....
Commenting brilliantly on how ‘tribe’ became one of the
lenses for the European coloniser to understand Bharat, the
following is what Devalle has to say, using the Jharkhand
experience to make her case:
Under colonialism, communities that evaded the other
dominant cataloguing device -caste- were defined
according to the tribal paradigm. It was then that ‘the
tribes’ made their appearance in the Indian scenario. A
creation of European origin, tribe was one of the
elements through which Europe constructed part of the
Indian reality.
A final factor must be considered for nineteenth
century colonial Chotanagpur: the arrival of German
Evangelican Lutheran, Anglican and Roman Catholic
missions. In this way, the pillars that have classically
sustained colonial penetration and ensured colonial
hegemony: the military, a legal and administrative
system, a capitalist economy, and the Church with its
‘civilizing’/educational mission were all present in
Jharkhand.
The core of the Munda area was contained in the
Quadrilateral, flanked by the Catholic churches at
Bandgaon, Sarwada, Dolda and Buruduth. Although the
Roman Catholic mission was the last to enter the area, it
attained the fastest rate of conversions (15,000
converts in 1887; 71,270 by 1900). The German
Evangelican Lutheran mission was the first to settle in
Chotanagpur when it established stations in Munda
territory in 1845. It had 40,000 converts by 1895… .
Santals and Hos rarely converted; the bulk of adivasi
Christians were Mundas and Oraons.
Education given by the different missions, based on
European values, contributed to the adivasis’
deculturation, and its effects are clearly observable
today.
.… Jharkhand’s socioeconomic evolution in the course
of history, summarily described above, gives evidence
that supports my contention that it is erroneous to place
Jharkhand’s adivasi societies within the artificially
created framework of tribe.
…. In sum, given the qualitative aspects of the social
and economic organization of the adivasi precapitalist
societies of Jharkhand in pre-colonial India as well as
after their subsumption under colonial capitalism, their
categorization as ‘tribal’ is at best, out of place and, at
worst, ahistorical and sociologically groundless. There
were in fact no tribes in Jharkhand. In essence they were
a parthenogenetic creation of British colonial
administration. Only by a curious trick of historical
reversion could there be tribes nowadays. Adivasis live
in a class society, and exist in an economic formation
where the capitalist mode is dominant. What does exist,
however, is the ideology of tribe which, in Wolpe’s
words, ‘sustains and reproduces capitalist relations of
production’ (1972: 454) [emphases added].
It is evident from the above excerpts that both Dirks and
Devalle end up showcasing the undeniable hand of
coloniality in the creation of ‘caste’ and ‘tribe’ as we know
and understand it today. This qualification ‘as we know and
understand it today’ is of vital importance because it
underscores the impact of coloniality on aspects of
indigenous society, which popular discourse treats as being
representative of its unchanging character and nature. I
must clarify that it is not my case that the precolonial past
was perfect or that there were no instances of
discrimination; instead, I am merely making the point, citing
credible literature, that our understanding of the past is
thoroughly colonialised, and only when the colonial strings
are removed from the discourse, can we truly begin to
understand varna and jati from the standpoint of their
history as well as examining them for contemporary
relevance, if any.
The unchanging character imputed to institutions, such as
caste as well as to the stakeholders, is largely a product of
Christian colonial reconstruction. Until a decolonial approach
is employed by experts and ‘intellectuals’, we will continue
to see the entrenchment of colonialised identities and
fissures, which began with an anti-Brahmin slant but whose
rapid movement towards an anti-Dharmic/anti-Hindu
position is less veiled with each passing day—thereby
revealing the end goal of European coloniality. Pertinently,
Middle Eastern coloniality too now rides on the coattails of
European coloniality in this regard, since the latter’s
secularised Christian framework provides it with optically
sanitised means to gradually marginalise and eliminate
Indic consciousness, which it failed to do despite the
employment of savagery for centuries.
It is also evident from the literature discussed here that
even education was used as a means to further the
Christian civilising and reformist intent, since the nexus
between education, language and religious conversion was
thoroughly understood by the Christian establishment right
from the inclusion of the first Missionary Clause in the
Charter of 1698. Consequently, it is important to briefly
examine the education and language policies of the British
coloniser which also support the position that education was
the secularised means to an unsecular evangelical end, or
the Christian colonial end.
Colonial Education for ‘Moral and Religious
Improvement’ a.k.a Proselytisation
Between 1715 and 1787, English-medium charity schools
were set up in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta with the
assistance of the Company largely for the purposes of
educating European and Anglo-Indian children. In so far as
the education of the natives was concerned, the Company
started taking an interest from 1765 onwards, that is, after
the Battle of Buxar, when its rise as a political power had
become clear to the British government as well as to Indian
rulers. As a measure of rapprochement with the Indian
population, the Company adopted a conscious policy of
taking forward the legacy of Hindu and Muslim rulers which
led to the following measures, according to scholars J.P. Naik
and Syed Nurullah27:
1. Establishment of madrassahs and pathashalas;
2. Giving marks of honour or pecuniary grants to
learned Pandits and Moulvis; and
3. Endowing educational institutions for higher religious
studies.
In addition to these, in order to co-opt the Indian upper
classes into the British administration, the Company
established the Banaras Sanskrit College and Calcutta
Madrassah. The intent behind the establishment of such
institutions and the role that was envisaged for their
products was captured in a letter dated 1 January 1792 from
Jonathan Duncan, the British Resident in Benares, to the Earl
of Cornwallis, K.G., Governor-General in Council.28
The 2nd principal advantage that may be derived from
this Institution will be felt in its effects more
immediately by the natives, though not without being
participated in by the British subjects, who are to rule
over them, by pre-serving and disseminating a
knowledge of the Hindoo Law and proving a nursery of
future doctors and expounders thereof, to assist the
European judges in the due, regular, and uniform
administration of its genuine letter and spirit to the
body of the people.
At the other end of the spectrum were those, such as
Charles Grant, who were obsessed with the idea of using
colonial education to cure the ‘Hindoos’ of the error of their
ways and the darkness which was attributed to the ‘Hindoo
religion’, of course.29 Here are a few portions of Grant’s
views from his ‘Observations’ dated 16 August 1797, which
laid the foundations for the strengthening of the Church
establishment in Bharat through the 1813 Charter Act30:
We now proceed to the main object of this work, for the
sake of which all the preceding topics and discussions
have been brought forward—an enquiry into the means
of remedying disorders, which have become thus
inveterate in the state of society among our Asiatic
subjects, which destroy their happiness, and obstruct
every species of improvement among them.
The true cure of darkness, is the introduction of light.
The Hindoos err, because they are ignorant; and their
errors have never fairly been laid before them. The
communication of our light and knowledge to them,
would prove the best remedy for their disorders; and
this remedy is proposed, from a full conviction that if
judiciously and patiently applied, it would have great
and happy effects upon them, effects honourable and
advantageous for us.
.… There are two ways of making this communication:
the one is, by the medium of the languages of those
countries; the other is by the medium of our own. In
general, when foreign teachers have proposed to
instruct the inhabitants of any country, they have used
the vernacular tongue of that people, for a natural and
necessary reason, that they could not hope to make any
other mean of communication intelligible to them. This
is not our case in respect of our eastern dependencies.
They are our own, we have possessed them long, many
Englishmen reside among the natives, our language is
not unknown there, and it is practicable to diffuse it
more widely. The choice therefore of either mode, lies
open to us; and we are at liberty to consider which is
entitled to a preference. Upon this subject, it is not
intended to pass an exclusive decision here; the points
absolutely to be contended for are, that we ought to
impart our superior lights, and that this is practicable;
that it is practicable by two ways, can never be an
argument why neither should be attempted. Indeed no
great reason appears why either should be
systematically interdicted, since particular cases may
recommend even that which is generally least eligible.
.… We proceed then to observe, that it is perfectly in
the power of this country, by degrees, to impart to the
Hindoos our language; afterwards through that medium,
to make them acquainted with our easy literary
compositions, upon variety of subjects ; and, let not the
idea hastily excite derision, progressively with the
simple elements of our arts, our philosophy and religion.
These acquisitions would silently undermine, and at
length subvert, the fabric of error; and all the objections
that may be apprehended against Such a change, are, it
is confidently believed, capable of a solid answer.
The first communication, and the instrument of
introducing the rest, must be the English language; this
is a key which will open to them a world of new ideas,
and policy alone might have impelled us, long since, to
put it into their hands. It would be extremely easy for
Government to establish, at a moderate expense, in
various parts of the provinces, places of gratuitous
instruction in reading and writing English: multitudes,
especially of the young, would flock to them; and the
easy books used in teaching, might at the same time
convey obvious truths on different subjects. The
teachers should be persons of knowledge, morals and
discretion; and men of this character could impart to
their pupils much useful information in discourse: and to
facilitate the attainment of that object, they might at
first make use of the Bengalese tongue. The Hindoos
would, in time, become teachers of English themselves;
and the employment of our language in public business,
for which every political reason remains in full force,
would, in the course of another generation, make it very
general throughout the country. There is nothing
wanting to the success of this plan, but the hearty
patronage of Government. If they wish it to succeed, it
can and must succeed. The introduction of English in the
administration of the revenue, in judicial proceedings,
and in other business of Government, wherein Persian is
now used, and the establishment of free-schools for
instruction in this language, would insure its diffusion
over the country, for the reason already suggested, that
the interest of the natives would induce them to acquire
it.
With our language, much of our useful literature
might, and would, in time be communicated. The art of
Printing, would enable us to disseminate our writings in
a way the Persians never could have done, though their
compositions had been as numerous as ours. Hence the
Hindus would see the great use we make of reason on
all subjects, and in all affairs; they also would learn to
reason, they would become acquainted with the history
of their own species, the past and present state of the
world; their affections would gradually become
interested by various engaging works, composed to
recommend virtue, and to deter from vice; the general
mass of their opinions would be rectified; and above all,
they would see a better system of principles and morals.
New views of duty as rational creatures would open
upon them; and that mental bondage in which they
have long been holden would gradually dissolve.
To this change the true knowledge of nature would
contribute; and some of our easy explanations of natural
philosophy might, undoubtedly, by proper means, be
made intelligible to them. Except a few Brahmins, who
consider the concealment of their learning as part of
their religion,* the people are totally misled as to the
system and phenomena of nature; and their errors in
this branch of science, upon which divers important
conclusions rest, may be more easily demonstrated to
them, than the absurdity and falsehood of their
mythological legends. From the demonstration of the
true cause of eclipses, the story of Ragoo and Ketoo, the
dragons, who when the sun and moon are obscured are
supposed to be assaulting them, a story which has
hitherto been an article of religious faith, productive of
religious services among the Hindoos, would fall to the
ground; the removal of one pillar would weaken the
fabric of falsehood; the discovery of one palpable error,
would open the mind to farther conviction; and the
progressive discovery of truths, hitherto unknown,
would dissipate as many superstitious chimeras, the
parents of false fears, and false hopes. Every branch of
natural philosophy might in time be introduced and
diffused among the Hindoos. Their understandings
would then be strengthened, as well as their minds
informed, and error be dispelled in proportion
[emphases added].
On the introduction of Christianity, Grant had the following
to say:
It is not asserted, that such effects would be immediate
or universal; but admitting them to be progressive, and
partial only, yet how great would the change be, and
how happy at length for the outward prosperity, and
internal peace of society among the Hindoos! Men
would be restored to the use of their reason; all the
advantages of happy soil, climate, and situation, would
be observed and improved; the comforts and
conveniences of life would be increased; the cultivation
of the mind, and rational intercourse, valued; the people
would rise in the scale of human beings; and as they
found their character, their state, and their comforts,
improved, they would prize more highly, the security
and the happiness of a well-ordered society. Such a
change would correct those sad disorders which have
been described, and for which no other remedy has
been proposed, nor is in the nature of things to be
found.
Grant’s views are the perfect response to those that
contend that language is merely a medium of instruction or
communication and that it must not be associated with any
particular religion. Critically, between the Company’s policy
of setting up the Benares Sanskrit College and the Calcutta
Madrassah, and the views of evangelical Christians like
Charles Grant, one can see the tussle from the 1790s to the
mid-1800s between two predominant schools of thought on
what must be the Christian British coloniser’s educationcum-language policy in Bharat.31
The first school, namely the Orientalist school, believed in
amalgamating indigenous forms of knowledge production,
content and pedagogy with the European system, which led
to the establishment of the Benares Sanskrit College and
the Calcutta Madrassah, so as to co-opt Indians into the
British administrative structure. The second school, namely
the Evangelical/Anglicist school, led by Charles Grant and
other like-minded individuals, such as William Wilberforce,
associated the English language with Christianity and
Western civilisation. This school was acutely aware of the
role language played as the carrier of a worldview, and
therefore, pushed for the introduction of English education.
It is important to underscore the fact that both schools
subscribed to the notion of Christian European superiority in
all respects; the only difference was that the former was
more driven by certain pragmatic and mercantile
considerations and therefore, believed in employing subtler
means to Europeanise natives while being seen as
supportive of native institutions, whereas the latter school
wore its Christian colonial consciousness and evangelising
nature on its sleeve.
Ultimately, in the tussle between the Company’s
Orientalism and Grant’s evangelism, the latter clearly
dominated, since it was responsible for the express and
enhanced support of the British government to the
advancement of Christianity in Bharat under the 1813
Charter Act, a position which was carried forward and
strengthened at least until 1853. While Grant’s views were
proof of evangelical intent prior to and underlying the 1813
Act, here is an extract from a Minute issued by Lord Moira,
dated 2 October 181532:
119. In looking for a remedy to these evils, the moral
and intellectual improvement of the natives will
necessarily form a prominent feature of any plan which
may arise from the above suggestions, and I have
therefore not failed to turn my most solicitous attention
to the important object of public education.
121. As the public money would be ill-appropriated in
merely providing gratuitous access to that quantum of
education which is already attainable, any intervention
of government either by superintendence, or by
contribution, should be directed to the improvement of
existing tuition, and to the diffusion of it to places and
persons now out of its reach. Improvement and diffusion
may go hand in hand; yet the latter is to be considered
matter of calculation, while the former should be
deemed positively incumbent. The general, the sad
defect of this education is, that the inculcation of moral
principle forms no part of it. This radical want is not
imputable to us. The necessities of self-defence (for all
our extensions of territory have been achieved in
repelling efforts made for the subversion of our power)
and our occupation in securing the new possessions,
have allowed us till lately, but little leisure to examine
deliberately the state of the population which we had
been gradually bringing beneath our sway. It was
already vitiated. The unceasing wars which had
harassed all parts of India, left everywhere their
invariable effects, a disorganization of that frame-work
of habit and opinion, which enforces moral conduct, and
an emancipation of all those irregular impulses which
revolt at its restraint. The village school-masters could
not teach that in which they had themselves never been
instructed; and universal debasement of mind, the
constant concomitant of subjugation to despotic rule,
left no chance that an innate sense of equity should in
those confined circles suggest the recommendation of
principles not thought worthy of cultivation by the
government. The remedy for this is to furnish the village
school-masters with little manuals of religious
sentiments and ethic maxims, conveyed in such a shape
as may be attractive to the scholars; taking care that
while awe and adoration of the Supreme Being are
earnestly instilled no jealousy be excited by pointing out
any particular Creed. The absence of such an objection,
and small pecuniary rewards for zeal occasionally
administered by the magistrates, would induce the
school-masters to use those compilations readily.
122. To those who are anxious to propagate among
the vast population of this empire the inestimable lights
of true religion, it may be confidently maintained that
there is no hope of success but by rendering the people
capable of understanding that which is proposed to
them; open the minds of the rising generation by due
instruction; give them a habit of reverencing the
principles which the Christian doctrine enjoins without
stimulating the parents into opposition by teaching on
point adverse to their superstitions; and their inevitable
rejection of beliefs irreconcilable to the reason which
you will have enabled them to exercise, and repugnant
to the probity which you will have taught them to
admire, must render certain their transition to the path
you wish. As it is, their ignorance insures their
tenaciousness of their earlier impressions, and pledges
their implicit submission to the dictates with which the
Brahmins would counteract the object were they
alarmed into contest. The progress to be effectual, must
be patient and silent; like every other beneficial change,
it must rise out of the general sense of society, not be
imposed upon it; and to produce that sense, I know no
mode but education.
123. The next gradation in public tuition is the higher
class of teachers to be found in the principal towns, and
the only question in regard to them appears to be the
expediency of furnishing them with the means of
inculcating more accurate ideas of general science and
sounder principles of morality.
135. The lapse of half a century and the operation of
that principle have produced a new state of society,
which calls for a more enlarged and liberal policy. The
moral duties require encouragement and experiment.
The arts which Minute by Lord adorn and embellish life,
will follow in ordinary course. It is for the credit of the
British name, that this beneficial revolution should arise
under British sway. To be the source of blessings to the
immense population of India is an ambition worthy of
our country. In proportion as we have found intellect
neglected and sterile here, the obligation is the stronger
on us to cultivate it. The field is noble: may we till it
worthily [emphases added]!
Paragraph 122 of this Minute could not have been clearer in
the intent behind the introduction of Christian education in
Bharat. The hope was that ‘reason’, that is, ‘Christian
reason’ would slowly and silently but surely bring to the
native population ‘the inestimable lights of true religion’ by
counteracting the ‘dictates of Brahmins’. Would it not be fair
to say that the stated object behind introduction of Christian
education in Bharat appears to have been achieved to a
significant extent? Again, I leave it to the reader to draw
their own conclusions while I place first-hand material
before them.
By July 1823, the Governor-General in Council had passed
a resolution for the creation of a Committee for Public
Instruction ‘with a view to the better instruction of the
people, to the introduction among them of useful knowledge
and to the improvement of their moral character’.33 In that
very same month, Holt Mackenzie, a British colonial
administrator, wrote a note on the government’s scheme to
pursue public education, wherein he stressed the need for a
Christian scheme of education for the native elites in order
to influence the ‘lower orders’, evidenced by the following
extract34:
The education indeed of the great body of the people
can never, I think, be expected to extend beyond what
is necessary for the business of life; and it is only
therefore through religious exercises, which form a great
part of the business of life, that the labourer will turn his
thoughts on things above the common drudgery, by
which he earns his subsistence. Hence it is under the
Christian scheme alone, that I should expect to find the
labouring classes really educated: and their station in
the scale of instructed and humanized beings will, I
imagine, be pretty closely proportioned to their piety.
We have no such instrument, with which to work
beneficially on the lower orders here. Further the natural
course of things in all countries seems to be that
knowledge introduced from abroad should descend from
the higher or educated classes and gradually spread
through their example. We surely cannot here, at least
expect the servant to prize a learning, which his master
despises or hates. The influence of Europeans, if they
use not the influential classes of the native community,
must necessarily be very confined. What is taught in our
schools will only be thought of there. Our scholars, if of
the common people when they enter the world, will find
no sympathy among their fellows, and until the lessons
of the master, or professor become the subject of
habitual thought and conversation, they cannot touch
the heart, they will little affect the understanding. The
acquirement will be an act of memory, with little more
of feeling or reflection than if nonsense verses were the
theme [emphasis added].
Interestingly, the indigenous pedagogy and curriculum are
discussed in great detail in a letter dated 17 August 1823
from A.D. Campbell, Collector of Bellary, to the President
and Members of the Board of Revenue, Fort St George.35
Here are a few extracts which are telling in their
demonstration of how far the contemporary Indian
education system has travelled from its civilisational
character, which existed even as recently as 1823, that is,
less than two centuries ago:
2. The population of this district is specified in the
enclosed statement at 927,857, or little less than a
million of souls. The number of schools is only 533,
containing no more than 6,641 scholars, or about 12 to
each school, and not seven individuals in a thousand of
the entire population.
3. The Hindoo scholars are in number 6,398, the
Mussulman scholars only 213, and the whole of these
are males, with the exception of only 60 girls, who are
all Hindoos exclusively.
4. The English language is taught in one school only;
the Tamil in four; the Persian in 21; the Mahratta in 23;
the Teloogoo in 226, and the Carnataca in 235. Besides
these there are 23 places of instruction attended by
Brahmins exclusively, in which some of the Hindoo
sciences, such as theology, astronomy, logic and law,
are still imperfectly taught in the Sanscrit language.
5. In these places of Sanscrit instruction in the Hindoo
sciences, attended by youths, and often by persons far
advanced in life, education is conducted on a plan
entirely different from that pursued in the schools, in
which children are taught reading, writing and
arithmetic only, in the several vernacular dialects of the
country. I shall endeavour to give a brief outline of the
latter, as to them the general population of the country
is confined; and as that population consists chiefly of
Hindoos I shall not dwell upon the few Mussulman
schools in which Persian is taught.
6. The education of the Hindoo youths generally
commences when they are five years old; on reaching
this age, the master and scholars of the school to which
the boy is to be sent, are invited to the house of his
parents; the whole are seated in a circle round an image
of Gunasee and the child to be initiated is placed
exactly opposite to it. The schoolmaster sitting by his
side, after having burnt incense and presented offerings,
causes the child to repeat a prayer to Gunasee,
entreating wisdom. He then guides the child to write
with its finger in rice the mystic names of the deity, and
is dismissed with a present from the parents according
to their ability. The child next morning commences the
great work of his education.
12. The three books which are most common in all the
schools, and which are used indiscriminately by the
several castes, are the Ramayannm, Maha Bharata and
Bhagavata; but the children of manufacturing class of
people have, in addition to the above, books peculiar to
their own religious tenets, such as the Nagalingayna,
Kutha
Vishvakurma,
Poorana,
Kamalesherra
Ralikamahata; and those who wear the lingum, such as
the Buwapoorana Raghavan-kimkanya, Keeruja Gullana,
Unabhavamoorta,
Chenna
Busavaswara
Poorana,
Jurilagooloo, etc., which are all considered sacred, and
are studied with a view of subserving their several
religious creeds.
13. The lighter kind of stories, which are read for
amusement,
are
generally
the
Punchatantra
Bhatalapunchavunsatee,
Punklee-soopooktahuller,
Mahantarungenee. The books on the principles of the
vernacular languages themselves, are the several
dictionaries and grammars, such as the Nighantoo,
Umara, Suddamumburee, Shuddeemanee, Durpana,
Vyacurna, Andradeepeca, Andranamasangraha, etc.,
etc., but these last and similar books which are most
essential, and without which no accurate or extensive
knowledge of the vernacular languages can be attained,
are, from the high price of manuscripts and the general
poverty of the masters, of all the books the most
uncommon in the native schools, and such of them as
are found there, are, in consequence of the ignorance,
carelessness and indolence of copyists in general, full of
blunders, and in every way most incorrect and
imperfect.
One of the reasons that this letter is educative is that it
informs us that at least until 1823, indigenous
consciousness and epistemology had survived 12 centuries
of genocidal campaigns by Middle Eastern coloniality. In
stark contrast, in less than two centuries, European
coloniality has made deep inroads which Middle Eastern
coloniality could not. The extent of entrenchment of
European coloniality can perhaps be gauged from a letter
dated 11 December 1823 written by Raja Rammohun Roy to
the then Governor-General of India, William Pitt.36 Raja
Rammohun Roy was known as a ‘Hindoo social reformer’
and as one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha. The
following is a reproduction of Roy’s letter to Pitt, which
reflected his views on indigenous education and his fervent
appeal for European education:
Sir,
I beg leave to send you the accompanying address
and shall feel obliged if you will have the goodness to
lay it before the Right Hon’ble the Governor-General in
Council.
I have, etc.,
RAMMOHUN ROY.
Calcutta;
The 11th December 1823.
To
His Excellency the Right Hon’ble William Pitt, Lord
Amherst.
My Lord,
Humbly reluctant as the natives of India are to
obtrude upon the notice of Government the sentiments
they entertain on any public measure, there are
circumstances when silence would be carrying this
respectful feeling to culpable excess.
The present Rulers of India, coming from a distance of
many thousand miles to govern a people whose
language, literature, manners, customs, and ideas are
almost entirely new and strange to them, cannot easily
become so intimately acquainted with their real
circumstances, as the natives of the country are
themselves. We should therefore be guilty of a gross
dereliction of duty to ourselves, and afford our Rulers
just ground of complaint at our apathy, did we omit on
occasions of importance like the present to supply them
with such accurate information as might enable them to
devise and adopt measures calculated to be beneficial
to the country, and thus second by our local knowledge
and experience their declared benevolent intentions for
its improvement.
The establishment of a new Sangscrit School in
Calcutta evinces the laudable desire of Government to
improve the Natives of India by Education—a blessing
for which they must ever be grateful; and every well
wisher of the human race must be desirous that the
efforts made to promote it should be guided by the most
enlightened principles, so that the stream of intelligence
may flow into the most useful channels.
When this Seminary of learning was proposed, we
understood that the Government in England had
ordered a considerable sum of money to be annually
devoted to the instruction of its Indian Subjects. We
were filled with sanguine hopes that this sum would be
laid out in employing European Gentlemen of talents
and education to instruct the natives of India in
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy
and other useful Sciences, which the Nations of Europe
have carried to a degree of perfection that has raised
them above the inhabitants of other parts of the world.
While we looked forward with pleasing hope to the
dawn of knowledge thus promised to the rising
generation, our hearts were filled with mingled feelings
of delight and gratitude; we already offered up thanks to
Providence for inspiring the most generous and
enlightened of the Nations of the West with the glorious
ambitions of planting in Asia the Arts and Sciences of
modern Europe.
We now find that the Government are establishing a
Sangscrit school under Hindoo Pundits to impart such
knowledge as is already current in India. This Seminary
(similar in character to those which existed in Europe
before the time of Lord Bacon) can only be expected to
load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and
metaphysical distinctions of little or no practicable use
to the possessors or to society. The pupils will there
acquire what was known two thousand years ago, with
the addition of vain and empty Subtilties since produced
by speculative men, such as is already commonly
taught in all parts of India.
The Sangscrit language, so difficult that almost a life
time is necessary for its perfect acquisition, is well
known to have been for ages a lamentable check on the
diffusion of knowledge; and the learning concealed
under this almost, impervious veil is far from sufficient
to reward the labour of acquiring it. But if it were
thought necessary to perpetuate this language for the
sake of the portion of the valuable information it
contains, this might be much more easily accomplished
by other means than the establishment of a new
Sangscrit College; for there have been always and are
now numerous professors of Sangscrit in the different
parts of the country, engaged in teaching this language
as well as the other branches of literature which are to
be the object of the new Seminary. Therefore their more
diligent cultivation, if desirable, would be effectually
promoted by holding out premiums and granting certain
allowances to those most eminent Professors, who have
already undertaken on their own account to teach them,
and would by such rewards be stimulated to still greater
exertions.
From these considerations, as the sum set apart for
the instruction of the Natives of India was intended by
the Government in England, for the improvement of its
Indian subjects, I beg leave to state, with due deference
to your Lordship’s exalted situation, that if the plan now
adopted be followed, it will completely defeat the object
proposed; since no improvement can be expected from
inducing young men to consume a dozen of years of the
most valuable period of their lives in acquiring the
niceties of the Byakurun or Sangscrit Grammar. For
instance, in learning to discuss such points as the
following: Khad signifying to eat, khaduti, he or she or it
eats. Query, whether does the word khaduti, taken as a
whole, convey [sic] the meaning he, she, or it eats, or
are separate parts of this meaning conveyed by distinct
portions of the word? As if in the English language it
were asked, how much meaning is there in the eat, how
much in the s? and is the whole meaning of the word
conveyed by those two portions of it distinctly, or by
them taken jointly?
Neither can much improvement arise from such
speculations as the following, which are the themes
Suggested by the Vedant:- In what manner is the soul
absorbed into the deity? What relation does it bear to
the divine essence? Nor will youths be fitted to be better
members of Society by the Vedantic doctrines, which
teach them to believe that all visible things have no real
existence; that as father, brother, etc., have no actual
entirety, they consequently deserve no real affection,
and therefore the sooner we escape from them and
leave the world the better.
Again, no essential benefit can be derived by the
student of the Meemangsa from knowing what it is that
makes the killer of a goat sinless on pronouncing certain
passages of the Veds, and what is the real nature and
operative influence of passages of the Ved, etc.
Again the student of the Nyaya Shastra cannot be said
to have improved his mind after he has learned from it
into how many ideal classes the objects in the Universe
are divided, and what speculative relation the Soul
bears to the body, the body to the Soul, the eye to the
ear, etc.
In order to enable your Lordship to appreciate the
utility of encouraging such imaginary learning as above
characterised, I beg your Lordship will be pleased to
compare the state of science and literature in Europe
before the time of Lord Bacon, with the progress of
knowledge made since he wrote.
If it had been intended to keep the British nation in
ignorance of real knowledge the Baconian philosophy
would not have been allowed to displace the system of
the schoolmen, which was the beat calculated to
perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner the
Sangscrit system of education would be the best
calculated to keep this country in darkness, if such had
been the policy of the British Legislature.
But as the improvement of the native population is
the object of the Government, it will consequently
promote a more liberal and enlightened system of
instruction, embracing mathematics, natural philosophy,
chemistry and anatomy, with other useful sciences
which may be accomplished with the sum proposed by
employing a few gentlemen of talents and learning
educated in Europe, and providing a college furnished
with the necessary books, instruments and other
apparatus.
In representing this subject to your Lordship I conceive
myself discharging a solemn duty which I owe to my
countrymen and also to that enlightened Sovereign and
Legislature which have extended their benevolent cares
to this distant land actuated by a desire to improve its
inhabitants and I therefore humbly trust you will excuse
the liberty I have taken in thus expressing my
sentiments to your Lordship.
I have, etc.,
RAMMOHUN ROY.
Calcutta;
The 11th December 1823 [emphases added].
This letter tells us quite a few things about Raja Rammohun
Roy as well as about the two-way nature of coloniality as
observed by Dr. Balagangadhara. First, there is a clear
consistency of coloniality between Roy’s Christianised views
of the ‘Hindu religion’, reflected in the principles and beliefs
of the Brahmo Movement, and his views on what constituted
‘useful’ knowledge on the other. Second, as Dr.
Balagangadhara observed on the role of the coloniser and
the colonised in creating and perpetuating coloniality, it
could be said that Roy’s letter is a textbook example of the
role of the colonised. Therefore, in adopting a decolonial
approach, as much as it is important to identify the role of
the coloniser in altering the state of affairs as it existed prior
to his arrival, it is equally important to acknowledge the role
of the colonised in aiding the spread and entrenchment of
the coloniser’s colonial consciousness, especially after
having achieved decolonisation or ‘independence’.
One of the reasons that this must be underscored is that
in popular discourse in contemporary India, Macaulay’s
infamous speech on the intention behind the introduction of
colonial education is often cited (which I will discuss
shortly), but the role played by ‘Hindoo social reformers’ of
the colonial era is rarely known, let alone acknowledged or
examined. This is not to pin the blame on the past, which
has become a fad today, but to draw attention to existence
and impact of colonial consciousness on the attitudes of the
colonised natives, even those who sought the upliftment of
the natives. The irony is that such Hindoo social reformers
were perhaps much closer to the Evangelical school in their
positions on ‘the Hindu religion’ and its ‘ills’.
The period until March 1835 witnessed frequent
exchanges between members of the Orientalist and
Evangelical Schools, which are illustratively captured in the
Minutes of H.T. Prinsep, a member of the Indian Civil
Service, on the one hand, and T.B. Macaulay on the other,
which included the latter’s infamous Minute of 1835 on the
need for Christian English-medium education in Bharat. This
exchange culminated in the adoption of a resolution in
March 1835 by William Bentinck, which was skewed in
favour of Macaulay’s position. Extracted below are the
relevant excerpts from the Minutes of Prinsep, Macaulay and
the Resolution of Bentinck.
Extract from a Minute of H.T. Prinsep, dated 9 July 1834:
I now first learn that on the 26th April 1834 at a meeting
of the sub-committee at which only Messrs. Shakespear
and Colvin were present the following resolution was
passed:
‘The Committee being of opinion that the time has
arrived for encouraging more openly and decidedly the
study of English in the Madrissa resolved that from the
present date no student be elected to a scholarship)
unless on the express condition of studying English as
well as Arabic.’
This Resolution if allowed to stand, will have the effect
of converting an institution established and endowed
specifically for the revival and encouragement of Arabic
literature for the education of Kazees and Moulvies into
a mere seminary for the teaching of English. I protest
against this measure as hasty and indiscreet, as
preventing the funds of an endowment from the
purposes to which they were specifically assigned and
as involving nothing less than a breach of trust. If the
teaching of English be attempted to be put on any other
footing than a course of study thrown open to the
students of the Madrissa to be undertaken or not at
their perfect option; if a preference of any be given to it
in the distribution of jageers, we shall be making a
change in the character of the Institution such as
nothing but an order of the Government which made the
endowment could justify.
But the resolution goes further than this. It not only
gives preference to those who study English but gives to
them a monopoly of the jageers, that is, it makes
English the sine qua non of Study at a College of
Moulvies. The next step will be to transfer the
Professors’ allowances to teachers of English and then
will follow in due course the voting of Arabic and Persian
to be dead and damned. I protest against this course of
proceeding at the first step and feel so strongly on the
subject that unless this resolution be rescinded I cannot
retain my seat in this Subcommittee.
Extracts from Minute of T.B. Macaulay, dated 2 February
183537:
[1] As it seems to be the opinion of some of the
gentlemen who compose the Committee of Public
Instruction that the course which they have hitherto
pursued was strictly prescribed by the British Parliament
in 1813 and as, if that opinion be correct, a legislative
act will be necessary to warrant a change, I have
thought it right to refrain from taking any part in the
preparation of the adverse statements which are now
before us, and to reserve what I had to say on the
subject till it should come before me as a Member of the
Council of India.
[2] It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament
can by any art of contraction be made to bear the
meaning which has been assigned to it. It contains
nothing about the particular languages or sciences
which are to be studied. A sum is set apart ‘for the
revival and promotion of literature, and the
encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for
the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories.’ It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that
by literature the Parliament can have meant only Arabic
and Sanscrit literature; that they never would have
given the honourable appellation of ‘a learned native’ to
a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the
metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton; but
that they meant to designate by that name only such
persons as might have studied in the sacred books of
the Hindoos all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the
mysteries of absorption into the Deity. This does not
appear to be a very satisfactory interpretation. To take a
parallel case: Suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a
country once superior in knowledge to the nations of
Europe, but now sunk far below them, were to
appropriate a sum for the purpose ‘of reviving and
promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives of
Egypt,’ would anybody infer that he meant the youth of
his Pachalik to give years to the study of hieroglyphics,
to search into all the doctrines disguised under the fable
of Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the
ritual with which cats and onions were anciently adored?
Would he be justly charged with inconsistency if, instead
of employing his young subjects in deciphering obelisks,
he were to order them to be instructed in the English
and French languages, and in all the sciences to which
those languages are the chief keys?
[3] The words on which the supporters of the old
system rely do not bear them out, and other words
follow which seem to be quite decisive on the other
side. This lakh of rupees is set apart not only for
‘reviving literature in India,’ the phrase on which their
whole interpretation is founded, but also ‘for the
introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories’—words which are alone sufficient to
authorize all the changes for which I contend.
[4] If the Council agree in my construction no
legislative act will be necessary. If they differ from me, I
will propose a short act rescinding that I clause of the
Charter of 1813 from which the difficulty arises.
[5] The argument which I have been considering
affects only the form of proceeding. But the admirers of
the oriental system of education have used another
argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is decisive
against all change. They conceive that the public faith is
pledged to the present system, and that to alter the
appropriation of any of the funds which have hitherto
been spent in encouraging the study of Arabic and
Sanscrit would be downright spoliation. It is not easy to
understand by what process of reasoning they can have
arrived at this conclusion. The grants which are made
from the public purse for the encouragement of
literature differ in no respect from the grants which are
made from the same purse for other objects of real or
supposed utility. We found a sanitarium on a spot which
we suppose to be healthy. Do we thereby pledge
ourselves to keep a sanitarium there if the result should
not answer our expectations? We commence the
erection of a pier. Is it a violation of the public faith to
stop the works, if we afterwards see reason to believe
that the building will be useless? The rights of property
are undoubtedly sacred. But nothing endangers those
rights so much as the practice, now unhappily too
common, of attributing them to things to which they do
not belong. Those who would impart to abuses the
sanctity of property are in truth imparting to the
institution of property the unpopularity and the fragility
of abuses. If the Government has given to any person a
formal assurance—nay, if the Government has excited
in any person’s mind a reasonable expectation— that he
shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a learner
of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would respect that person’s
pecuniary interests. I would rather err on the side of
liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to be
called in question. But to talk of a Government pledging
itself to teach certain languages and certain sciences,
though those languages may become useless, though
those sciences may be exploded, seems to me quite
unmeaning. There is not a single word in any public
instrument from which it can be inferred that the Indian
Government ever intended to give any pledge on this
subject, or ever considered the destination of these
funds as unalterably fixed. But, had it been otherwise, I
should have denied the competence of our predecessors
to bind us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose
that a Government had in the last century enacted in
the most solemn manner that all its subjects should, to
the end of time, be inoculated for the small-pox, would
that Government be bound to persist in the practice
after Jenner’s discovery? These promises of which
nobody claims the performance, and from which nobody
can grant a release, these vested rights which vest in
nobody, this property without proprietors, this robbery
which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended by
persons of higher faculties than mine. I consider this
plea merely as a set form of words, regularly used both
in England and in India, in defence of every abuse for
which no other plea can be set up.
[7] We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a
fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the
intellectual improvement of the people of this country.
The simple question is, what is the most useful way of
employing it?
[8] All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that
the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this
part of India contain neither literary nor scientific
information, and are moreover so poor and rude that,
until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will
not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It
seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual
improvement of those classes of the people who have
the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be
affected only by means of some language not
vernacular amongst them.
[9] What then shall that language be? One-half of the
committee maintain that it should be the English. The
other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit.
The whole question seems to me to be-- which language
is the best worth knowing?
[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.
But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate
of their value. I have read translations of the most
celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed,
both here and at home, with men distinguished by their
proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to
take the oriental learning at the valuation of the
orientalists themselves. I have never found one among
them who could deny that a single shelf of a good
European library was worth the whole native literature
of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the
Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those
members of the committee who support the oriental
plan of education.
[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the
department of literature in which the Eastern writers
stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with
any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic
and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the
great European nations. But when we pass from works
of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and
general principles investigated, the superiority of the
Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I
believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical
information which has been collected from all the books
written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than
what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used
at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of
physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the
two nations is nearly the same.
[12] How then stands the case? We have to educate a
people who cannot at present be educated by means of
their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign
language. The claims of our own language it is hardly
necessary to recapitulate. It stands preeminent even
among the languages of the West. It abounds with
works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which
Greece has bequeathed to us—with models of every
species of eloquence—with historical composition,
which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom
been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of
ethical and political instruction, have never been
equaled—with just and lively representations of human
life and human nature—with the most profound
speculations on metaphysics, morals, government,
jurisprudence, trade—with full and correct information
respecting every experimental science which tends to
preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to
expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows that
language has ready access to all the vast intellectual
wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have
created and hoarded in the course of ninety
generations. It may safely be said that the literature
now extant in that language is of greater value than all
the literature which three hundred years ago was extant
in all the languages of the world together. Nor is this all.
In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling
class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the
seats of Government. It is likely to become the language
of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the
language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in
Australia—communities which are every year becoming
more important and more closely connected with our
Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of
our literature, or at the particular situation of this
country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that,
of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which
would be the most useful to our native subjects.
[13] The question now before us is simply whether,
when it is in our power to teach this language, we shall
teach languages in which, by universal confession, there
are no books on any subject which deserve to be
compared to our own, whether, when we can teach
European science, we shall teach systems which, by
universal confession, wherever they differ from those of
Europe differ for the worse, and whether, when we can
patronize sound philosophy and true history, we shall
countenance, at the public expense, medical doctrines
which would disgrace an English farrier, astronomy
which would move laughter in girls at an English
boarding school, history abounding with kings thirty feet
high and reigns thirty thousand years long, and
geography made of seas of treacle and seas of butter.
[14] We are not without experience to guide us.
History furnishes several analogous cases, and they all
teach the same lesson. There are, in modern times, to
go no further, two memorable instances of a great
impulse given to the mind of a whole society, of
prejudices overthrown, of knowledge diffused, of taste
purified, of arts and sciences planted in countries which
had recently been ignorant and barbarous.
[15] The first instance to which I refer is the great
revival of letters among the Western nations at the close
of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth
century. At that time almost everything that was worth
reading was contained in the writings of the ancient
Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the
Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto noted, had
they neglected the language of Thucydides and Plato,
and the language of Cicero and Tacitus, had they
confined their attention to the old dialects of our own
island, had they printed nothing and taught nothing at
the universities but chronicles in Anglo-Saxon and
romances in Norman French,—would England ever have
been what she now is? What the Greek and Latin were
to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue
is to the people of India. The literature of England is now
more valuable than that of classical antiquity. I doubt
whether the Sanscrit literature be as valuable as that of
our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some
departments—in history for example—I am certain that
it is much less so.
[17] And what are the arguments against that course
which seems to be alike recommended by theory and by
experience? It is said that we ought to secure the
cooperation of the native public, and that we can do this
only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic.
[18] I can by no means admit that, when a nation of
high intellectual attainments undertakes to superintend
the education of a nation comparatively ignorant, the
learners are absolutely to prescribe the course which is
to be taken by the teachers. It is not necessary however
to say anything on this subject. For it is proved by
unanswerable evidence, that we are not at present
securing the co-operation of the natives. It would be bad
enough to consult their intellectual taste at the expense
of their intellectual health. But we are consulting
neither. We are withholding from them the learning
which is palatable to them. We are forcing on them the
mock learning which they nauseate.
[21] I have been told that it is merely from want of
local experience that I am surprised at these
phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for students in
India to study at their own charges. This only confirms
me in my opinions. Nothing is more certain than that it
never can in any part of the world be necessary to pay
men for doing what they think pleasant or profitable.
India is no exception to this rule. The people of India do
not require to be paid for eating rice when they are
hungry, or for wearing woollen cloth in the cold season.
To come nearer to the case before us: --The children
who learn their letters and a little elementary arithmetic
from the village schoolmaster are not paid by him. He is
paid for teaching them. Why then is it necessary to pay
people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because
it is universally felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic are
languages the knowledge of which does not compensate
for the trouble of acquiring them. On all such subjects
the state of the market is the detective test.
[22] Other evidence is not wanting, if other evidence
were required. A petition was presented last year to the
committee by several ex-students of the Sanscrit
College. The petitioners stated that they had studied in
the college ten or twelve years, that they had made
themselves acquainted with Hindoo literature and
science, that they had received certificates of
proficiency. And what is the fruit of all this?
‘Notwithstanding such testimonials,’ they say, ‘we have
but little prospect of bettering our condition without the
kind assistance of your honourable committee, the
indifference with which we are generally looked upon by
our countrymen leaving no hope of encouragement and
assistance from them.’ They therefore beg that they
may be recommended to the Governor-General for
places under the Government—not places of high
dignity or emolument, but such as may just enable them
to exist. ‘We want means,’ they say, ‘for a decent living,
and for our progressive improvement, which, however,
we cannot obtain without the assistance of Government,
by whom we have been educated and maintained from
childhood.’ They conclude by representing very
pathetically that they are sure that it was never the
intention of Government, after behaving so liberally to
them during their education, to abandon them to
destitution and neglect.
[23] I have been used to see petitions to Government
for compensation. All those petitions, even the most
unreasonable of them, proceeded on the supposition
that some loss had been sustained, that some wrong
had been inflicted. These are surely the first petitioners
who ever demanded compensation for having been
educated gratis, for having been supported by the
public during twelve years, and then sent forth into the
world well furnished with literature and science. They
represent their education as an injury which gives them
a claim on the Government for redress, as an injury for
which the stipends paid to them during the infliction
were a very inadequate compensation. And I doubt not
that they are in the right. They have wasted the best
years of life in learning what procures for them neither
bread nor respect. Surely we might with advantage have
saved the cost of making these persons useless and
miserable. Surely, men may be brought up to be
burdens to the public and objects of contempt to their
neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the State.
But such is our policy. We do not even stand neuter in
the contest between truth and falsehood. We are not
content to leave the natives to the influence of their
own hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties
which obstruct the progress of sound science in the
East, we add great difficulties of our own making.
Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given
even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false
texts and false philosophy.
[31] But there is yet another argument which seems
even more untenable. It is said that the Sanscrit and the
Arabic are the languages in which the sacred books of a
hundred millions of people are written, and that they are
on that account entitled to peculiar encouragement.
Assuredly it is the duty of the British Government in
India to be not only tolerant but neutral on all religious
questions. But to encourage the study of a literature,
admitted to be of small intrinsic value, only because
that literature inculcated the most serious errors on the
most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable
with reason, with morality, or even with that very
neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly
preserved. It is confined that a language is barren of
useful knowledge. We are to teach it because it is
fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false
history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we
find them in company with a false religion. We abstain,
and I trust shall always abstain, from giving any public
encouragement to those who are engaged in the work
of converting the natives to Christianity. And while we
act thus, can we reasonably or decently bribe men, out
of the revenues of the State, to waste their youth in
learning how they are to purify themselves after
touching an ass or what texts of the Vedas they are to
repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat?
[34] In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to
whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that
it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to
attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at
present do our best to form a class who may be
interpreters between us and the millions whom we
govern,—a class of persons Indian in blood and colour,
but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in
intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the
vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those
dialects with terms of science borrowed from the
Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees
fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass
of the population.
[36] If the decision of His Lordship in Council should
be such as I anticipate, I shall enter on the performance
of my duties with the greatest zeal and alacrity. If, on
the other hand, it be the opinion of the Government that
the present system ought to remain unchanged, I beg
that I may be permitted to retire from the chair of the
Committee. I feel that I could not be of the smallest use
there. I feel also that I should be lending my
countenance to what I firmly believe to be a mere
delusion. I believe that the present system tends not to
accelerate the progress of truth but to delay the natural
death of expiring errors. I conceive that we have at
present no right to the respectable name of a Board of
Public Instruction. We are a Board for wasting the public
money, for printing books which are of less value than
the paper on which they are printed was while it was
blank—for giving artificial encouragement to absurd
history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd
theology—for raising up a breed of scholars who find
their scholarship an incumbrance and blemish, who live
on the public while they are receiving their education,
and whose education is so utterly useless to them that,
when they have received it, they must either starve or
live on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertaining
these opinions, I am naturally desirous to decline all
share in the responsibility of a body which, unless it
alters its whole mode of proceedings, I must consider,
not merely as useless, but as positively noxious.
T.B. Macaulay
2nd February 1835 [emphases added].
While I could have simply referred to and summarised the
preceding exchange, I chose to extract the relevant portions
of the same so as to pre-empt the argument that I was
reading more into the primary source than warranted. As we
can see, the material speaks for itself, displaying the utter
contempt of the British coloniser for the Indic OET. The
hypocrisy of the coloniser is writ large in the fact that Indic
scriptures were being judged on the anvils of European
philosophy and science instead of applying the very same
standards of science and reason to the European coloniser’s
religion and its scripture. After all, if Indic OET is the subject
of examination and criticism, it must be compared with
Christian OET and the latter’s claims of being the exclusive
repository of reason and rationality. Also, when questioning
the practical value of native learning and using the market
as a test of its utility, the Christian coloniser turned a blind
eye to the fact that knowledge of native OET was rendered
unmarketable as a consequence of the alteration in the
native worldview and way of life caused by the very factum
of colonisation. Instead, he conveniently concludes that
such learning had always been futile since it lacked intrinsic
value. In any case, the Christian coloniser never deemed it
fit to ask as to what was the market utility of being trained
in Christian scripture. On the contrary, the British
establishment was happy to financially support the Christian
establishment in Bharat, which included pensionary
benefits, using revenues earned from Bharat.
Between the Orientalist and Evangelical positions, William
Bentinck threw his unreserved weight behind the latter,
which is evidenced as follows:
give my entire concurrence to the sentiments expressed
in this Minute.
W.C. BENTINCK
This reference is to Macaulay’s Minute. Bentinck’s
concurrence was further reflected in the Resolution dated 7
March 1835, which is reproduced below38:
On the 7th of March 1835 the following Resolution was
issued:—
‘The Governor-General of India in Council has
attentively considered the two letters from the
Secretary to the Committee of Public Instruction, dated
the 21st and 22nd January last, and the papers referred
to in them.
First—His Lordship in Council is of opinion that the
great object of the British Government ought to be the
promotion of European literature and science among the
natives of India; and that all the funds appropriated for
the purpose of education would be best employed on
English education alone.
d—But it is not the intention of His Lordship in Council
to abolish any College or School of native learning, while
the native population shall appear to be inclined to avail
themselves of the advantages which it affords, and His
Lordship in Council directs that all the existing
professors and students at all the institutions under the
superintendence of the Committee shall continue to
receive their stipends.
But his Lordship in Council decidedly objects to the
practice which has hitherto prevailed of supporting the
students during the period of their education. He
conceives that the only effect of such a system can be
to give artificial encouragement to branches of learning
which, in the natural course of things, would be
superseded by more useful studies; and he directs that
no stipend shall be given to any student that may
hereafter enter at any of these institutions; and that
when any professor of Oriental learning shall vacate his
situation, the Committee shall report to the Government
the number and state Resolution, of the class in order
that the Government may be able to decide upon the
expediency of appointing a successor.
Third—It has come to the knowledge of the GovernorGeneral in Council that a large sum has been expended
by the Committee on the printing of Oriental works; his
Lordship in Council directs that no portion of the funds
shall hereafter be so employed.
Fourth—His Lordship in Council directs that all the
funds which these reforms will leave at the disposal of
the Committee be henceforth employed in imparting to
the native population a knowledge of English literature
and science through the medium of the English
language; and His Lordship in Council requests the
Committee to submit to Government, with all
expedition, a plan for the accomplishment of this
purpose.
Between this resolution passed in 1835 and the year 1839,
the churn between the Orientalist and Evangelical schools
continued, resulting in a compromise captured in a Minute
of Lord Auckland, dated 24 November 1839.39 Among the
measures proposed to address the grievances of both
parties, additional funds were allocated to both, apart from
directing that ‘the first duty of the Oriental Colleges was to
impart instruction in Oriental learning and that they may
conduct English classes, if necessary, after that duty had
been properly discharged’. However, as the Minute reflects
and as confirmed by Naik and Nurullah in their seminal work
on Indian education, the following positions of the
Evangelical school were accepted:
1. Only partial and imperfect results could be expected
from the attempts to teach European science through
the medium of Sanskrit or Arabic;
2. The principal aim of educational policy should be to
communicate, through the English language, a complete
education in European literature, philosophy, and
science to the greatest number of students who may be
found ready to accept it; and
3. Attempts of the government should be restricted to
the extension of higher education to the upper classes
of society who have leisure for study and whose culture
would filter down to the masses.
Clearly, while increasing the allocation of funds to the
Orientalist cause, the emphasis still remained on advancing
the cause of English education and the spread of English
ideas, apart from adopting a conscious policy of co-opting
the Indian upper classes into higher education in the hope
that the rest of the Indian society would aspire to follow
their lead. This, according to scholars, such as Naik and
Nurullah, was the Downward Filtration Theory in official
action, which would characterise British education policy in
Bharat at least until 1870.
The long and short of the preceding discussion on religion,
caste, tribe and education, based on primary sources as well
as scholarly literature, is that at least until 1853, the
intention of the Christian European coloniser was to
establish a politico-legal and social infrastructure which
aided the spread of Christian colonial consciousness in
every aspect of the native society. Therefore, in
contemporary conversations and debates which touch upon
religion, caste/tribe, education or any other aspect for that
matter, the first step should be to check for the influence of
colonial assumptions and colonial consciousness before
proceeding to pass judgements on the past or evaluating
contemporary practices and structures for relevance. Until
and unless this exercise is undertaken, it must be presumed
that our conversations happen within the Christian colonial
framework and based on Christian colonialised versions of
native OET.
Also, sometimes members of the indigenous society take
pride and comfort in the fact that despite the best efforts of
the Christian European coloniser, Bharat has remained unproselytised for the most part. While I understand where this
sense of optimism comes from given that unlike Bharat vast
swathes of the ‘New World’ have turned Christian post the
advent of the European coloniser, to err on the side of
caution I would adopt a policy of civilisational vigilance for
two reasons:
1. Given that the Indian State as well as the colonialised
indigenous native are only too happy to wear the
secularised Christian framework as a badge of honour,
even if Bharat does not convert to Christianity, it would
be equally bad or perhaps worse if Indic OET systems
are completely Christianised; and
2. Conventional proselytisation has effectively alienated
large parts of Bharat from the Indic consciousness and
has, in fact, turned a significant cross-section of Bharat
against it.
Therefore, I would not draw too much comfort from a mere
paper identity when the native Indic consciousness is buried
under layers of colonial consciousness without even
realising it. As stated earlier, the decolonial ‘option’ is not
just an option but an existential imperative for Indic
civilisational consciousness; and since the Constitution is
being pushed as a ‘secular’ document without examining it
for colonial consciousness, a decolonial evaluation of the
document and its antecedents is an exercise that must be
undertaken without any further protraction. After all, the
Constitution is capable of creating a multiplier effect either
in favour of Indic consciousness or to its detriment.
Accordingly, in the next and final section of this book, I will
examine the period between 1858 and 1919 to understand
the influence of the colonial infrastructure in Bharat as well
as that of international developments on Bharat’s gradual
movement towards a constitutional framework. One of the
reasons for choosing the time frame from 1858 is because it
is typically assumed that the so-called policy of Christian
toleration morphed into a policy of irreligious secularism,
thanks to the landmark events of 1857. Among other things,
this assumption too will be put to test in the next section.
Section III
CONSTITUTION
10
Coloniality, Civilisation and
Constitution
Blowing mutinous sepoys from the guns, 8
September 1857
This is a hand-coloured steel engraving, detailing one of the activities post the
suppression of the Uprising of 1857. London Printing and Publishing Company,
1858.
The discussions undertaken hitherto in the previous two
sections on coloniality and civilisation are meant to serve as
twin lenses to understand the influence of European
coloniality/colonial consciousness on Bharat’s journey as an
indigenous civilisation towards constitutionalism. This
section is, in fact, the intended culmination of the previous
sections, and the specific object of my examination. One of
the reasons for using coloniality as the broader canvas
within which this journey is sought to be placed is to drive
home the point that to limit the study of the history of
Bharat’s Constitution to the Constituent Assembly and its
cogitations would be a truncated analysis. This is because it
is important to examine the OET-framework within which the
Assembly
operated,
consciously
or
unconsciously.
Accordingly, while the previous section covered the period
until 1853 in order to underscore the distinctly Christian
character of the politico-legal and social infrastructure
established by the Christian European coloniser in Bharat,
the current section will examine the period between 1858
and 1919–1920.
The importance of this time period is that 1858 marks the
assumption of complete control of British India by the British
Crown through the Government of India Act of 1858 and the
Company’s complete metamorphosis into an extension of
the British State. That is, in case even a smidgen of
autonomy remained after the 1853 Act, it was eclipsed by
the Act of 1858. As for the outer limit of 1919–1920, not
only does it mark the founding of the League of Nations, it is
also the period of enactment of the Government of India Act
of 1919—the first British-made Constitution for India—whose
tacit nexus with international developments, including the
founding of the League, is rarely discussed and warrants
close study.
Between 1853 and 1858, the Government of India Act of
1854 too was passed but it need not be discussed in detail
because for all practical purposes, the Act was an extension
of the 1853 Act as evidenced by Section 8 of the 1854 Act,
which reads as follows:1
This Act shall be read and construed as part of the
Government of India Act, 1853.
Clearly, the 1854 Act took forward the intent of the 1853 Act
by vesting in the Governor-General of India in Council the
power to assume control of any province that was in the
possession of the Company, which included the power to
define and redraw the boundaries of those provinces.
Therefore, the 1854 Act in itself contained nothing much
further apart from expanding the scope of the GovernorGeneral’s territorial and administrative powers already
granted under the 1853 Act.
Coming to the Government of India Act of 1858,2 the
watershed event which led to it was, of course, the Indian
Rebellion of 1857. The Rebellion itself was the making of
several political and religious factors, with the episode
involving the greased cartridges providing the necessary
flammable material. The role played by increased Christian
missionary activity under State patronage at least from
1813, which fuelled apprehensions of forced conversions of
Indians by the British, must not be underestimated in
triggering the Rebellion. What is worse is that the conduct of
the British in putting down the Rebellion had religious
bigotry written all over it. While the Muslims among the
rebels were sewed in pigskins smeared with pork fat before
execution, after which their bodies were burnt, the Hindus
were forced to defile themselves by consuming beef. As for
the civilian population, the conduct of English troops should
have denuded the British of the authority to hold forth on
‘civilisation’ for eternity. Thousands of civilians were
massacred and villages that were suspected of helping the
Indian Rebels were destroyed with the men being
slaughtered and the women being subjected to all forms of
sexual violence. Clearly, the unprovoked massacre at
Jallianwala Bagh was not an aberration and not without
precedent. The role played by the European coloniser’s utter
contempt for the natives, their religion and race must not be
ruled out as a contributing factor to the barbarity and
savagery meted out to the rebels and the civilian
population.
While the origin of the Rebellion is usually traced to
Meerut in May 1857, according to some scholars it began on
23 January 1857 at Dumdum near Calcutta, which spread to
Barrackpore in March, Ambala in April, and Meerut, Lucknow
and Delhi in May. ‘Peace’ was restored in November 1858;
however, the Company was blamed for the Rebellion and
the manner of its handling. By December 1857, Henry John
Temple (‘Lord Palmerston’), the then British prime minister,
informed the Company that a Bill would soon be introduced
in the British Parliament to abolish the Company and
transfer all territories of British India and the Government of
India itself to the Crown. Naturally, the Company begged
and pleaded and even pitched its case through the
philosopher and politician John Stuart Mill, but to no avail.
On 12 February 1858, Lord Palmerston introduced the Bill in
the British Parliament to end the dual government of the
Company and the Crown. He lamented that ‘the
management of such extensive territories, such vast
interests, and such numerous populations’ had been
‘deliberately consigned to the care of a small body of
commercial men’. Excoriating the Company, he said3:
The principle of our political system is that all
administrative functions should be accompanied by
ministerial responsibility—responsibility to Parliament,
responsibility to public opinion, responsibility to the
Crown; but in this case the chief functions in the
government of India are committed to a body not
responsible to Parliament, not appointed by the Crown,
but elected by persons who have no more connection
with India than consists in the simple possession of so
much stock.
He felt that the dual form of government, namely the
Company and the Crown, was among the biggest stumbling
blocks for ‘unity of purpose’ and expeditious decisionmaking. There was a significant cross-section of the British
Parliament that shared the views of Palmerston; however,
he was out of office within a week of the Bill’s introduction
in the Parliament and was succeeded by Edward SmithStanley, the Earl of Derby. The Bill was ultimately passed in
August 1858 and the Act came into force on 2 August 1858.4
Before we discuss the salient provisions of the 1858 Act, I
will place before the reader extracts from the debates
preceding the Act to demonstrate continuity in coloniality. In
fact, the debates establish beyond an iota of doubt that the
so-called policy of religious neutrality that was adopted by
the British after the events of 1857 was, in fact, a
restatement of the policy of ‘toleration’, which was
discussed in the previous chapters. That this policy
translated to grudging and pragmatic toleration of the false
religion of the heathen and a tacit support of the true
religion of the coloniser was said in as many words during
the debates by several members of the British Parliament,
in particular by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishops of London and Oxford, who clearly spelt out the
nature of their ‘neutrality’, that is, Christian neutrality.
At the third reading of the Bill on 8 July 1858, Samuel
Gregson, a member of the House of Commons, observed as
under5:
It was a source of satisfaction to him that it had fallen to
the lot of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) to legislate for
India, for he had visited India, and knew something
about the population over which he was called to rule.
The three great points to which the attention of the
Indian Government should be directed, as the seeds of
the future prosperity of that empire, were commerce,
civilization, and Christianity. He believed the first two
would lead to the third, without any extraordinary
pressure or exertion. He had lived amongst the people
of India for many years, and believed them to be
intelligent, docile, and honest. For many years he had
been surrounded by Native servants, and had never lost
even so much as a pocket handkerchief [emphasis
added].
On the same day, Sir Erskine Perry pointed out,
.... There was only one other point to which he wished to
refer. It was singular that the Bill did not contain a single
allusion to the native interests of India, which he
thought was an omission greatly to be deplored, as in
every previous Act the people of India had been assured
that their religion and customs would not be disturbed
[emphasis added].
Similarly, at the second reading of the Bill in the House of
Lords on 15 July 1858, the Earl of Ellenborough said6:
.... My Lords, I have never looked forward to the future
of India with more anxiety than I do at the present
moment. I feel perfectly satisfied that it is absolutely
necessary to send out for operations at the
commencement of the cold season a very much larger
force than it is possible, with due consideration to other
equally vital interests, to detach front this country,
without a material change in all our military
establishments. But, however valuable it may be to
send out a strong reinforcement of troops, I do not
believe that that reinforcement will enable us to
maintain our position in that country unless we send out
also a policy intelligible and acceptable to the Natives.
The first act of the Government—when Her Majesty
assumes in her own person the direction of affairs in
India—ought to be to issue in the most solemn manner
—and the Queen’s word must be sacred—a
proclamation with respect to the religion and the rights
of the Natives. That proclamation must not be written to
please the House of Commons, nor to please people on
the hustings, still less people on a platform; it must be
addressed to the people and the armies of India. We
have to govern India for India, not to please a party
here, and we must make a declaration of the principles
on which we intend to govern it, such as will be
thoroughly acceptable and intelligible to the people.
But, whatever policy you may declare, however great
your additions to the army of India may be, neither one
nor the other will effect your object unless you have in
India at the head of the Government a man who has the
confidence of the Natives and of the Europeans, who is
capable of directing military operations, and who, by his
personal authority, which in India is everything, can
compel all his subordinate officials to co-operate in his
policy and in carrying out the wishes of Her Majesty’s
Government [emphasis added].
In fact, a Proclamation dated 1 November 1858 was indeed
issued by Queen Victoria, which is often cited as proof of
British neutrality in matters of religion. The relevant portion
of the Proclamation which contains cues on the nature of
this toleration and neutrality7 is as follows:
Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and
acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we
disclaim alike the right and desire to impose our
convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be
our royal will and pleasure that none be in anywise
favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of
their religious faith or observances, but that all alike
shall enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law;
and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may
be in authority under us that they abstain from all
interference with the religious belief or worship of any of
our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure
[emphasis added].
The language of the Proclamation itself is proof of the fact
that the freedom of religion promised therein was rooted in
the political theology of Christian freedom, as De Roover
puts it. This is also evidenced by the language of the
debates preceding the 1858 Act, as shall be seen in the
ensuing portions. On 16 July 1858,8 the Bishop of Oxford:
then proposed an addition to the clause vesting the
right of nominating to chaplaincies in India in future
alternately in the Crown and in the Bishop of the diocese
in which the chaplaincies were situated. He hoped he
should have the concurrence of Her Majesty’s
Government on the subject. From the commencement of
legislation in connection with the East India Company
they were bound to maintain and provide certain
chaplains and ministers for their principal factories.
Hitherto these appointments had been made by the
Board of Directors at home, but under this clause they
would transfer the appointment of all these chaplains to
the Secretary of India. He, however, would propose that
this should be done alternately by the Secretary of State
and by the Bishop of the diocese. This would assimilate
the ecclesiastical system in India to that of the system
at home; and there was precedent for it in an Act
passed by the late Sir R. Peel. It was desirable the
resident Bishop should exercise this power, seeing that
there were many missionaries whose fitness and whose
merits could not come duly under the cognizance of the
Secretary of State; and by the method he proposed onehalf the patronage would be in the hands of the
Government and the other half in the Bishop [emphasis
added].
This was opposed by the Earl of Ellenborough on the
grounds that ‘it would be a most injudicious act at the
present moment to permit the Bishops in India to take
gentlemen from the missionary body and connect them by
chaplaincies with the Government’ [emphasis added].
Obviously, he was concerned about the sentiments of the
natives in light of the 1857 Rebellion. However, the Bishop
of London supported the Bishop of Oxford:
‘The Bishop of London—supported the Amendment. It
had been said that it was in the power of the Bishops
already to distribute patronage; but the only patronage
he knew of was that of the Bishop of Calcutta to
nominate his own archdeacon. He was far from wishing
to import into this discussion the tone of the platform,
but the feelings of the religious community ought not to
be ignored, and it was generally thought that we ought
to show a more manly and straightforward policy in
regard to the Christian religion.’
‘The Earl of Derby—thought it would be exceedingly
disadvantageous to have chaplains situated at such a
distance dependent, not on the Government, but on
their Bishops, thus giving rise to a conflict of authorities.
The chaplains were stipendiaries of the Government,
and it was of great importance that the present relations
between them should be maintained.’
‘The Bishop of Oxford—said, the noble Earl had not
met his arguments in any way. The question did not
relate to the dependence of the chaplains either on the
Bishops or the Government. His proposal simply was,
that the Bishops should have an alternate share with the
Secretary of state in the appointment of the chaplains’
[emphasis added].
Of course, it could be argued that this discussion was in the
context of the appointment of chaplains; however, it goes
on to show that the Christian religion and its continued
relationship with the State mattered enough to the
lawmakers of Britain for it to figure extensively in their
Parliamentary debates. What is more interesting and
relevant is their so-called policy of neutrality in relation to
freedom of religion in Bharat, which is a restatement of
‘secularism’ as we shall see in the following pages. At the
third reading of the Bill in the House of Lords on 23 July
1858, the following were the candid views of the Archbishop
of Canterbury9:
‘The Archbishop of Canterbury—My Lords, before this
Bill leaves I wish to address a few words to your
Lordships on a subject which, though not making any
part of the Bill, is closely connected with the
government of our Indian empire; but to which,
nevertheless, very little allusion has been made in the
course of the discussion—I mean the subject of religion,
and the singular and responsible position which England
holds as a Christian nation ruling over a nation of
heathens. My Lords, I make no complaint that the Bill is
silent on this important subject. It could not be
otherwise. The purpose of the Bill is to frame a
government, not to declare how that government is to
be administered—to create a machinery which is to be
worked elsewhere. I also agree in the principle that has
been so often laid down, that India must be governed in
India, and not from England. Still, my Lords, the subject
to which I allude is one on which strong and
conscientious convictions are entertained by a very
large portion of the community, who deeply feel the
anomalous and responsible position in which we are
placed as a Christian nation ruling over a vast
population of idolaters. My Lords, we are as far as
possible from desiring any open attempt on the part of
Government either to overthrow the false religion with
which, unhappily, we have to deal, or to establish that
which we know to be true. So far are we from desiring
any such interference that we should think nothing
gained by the conversion of the whole peninsula,
supposing that it could possibly be effected through
bribery or compulsion. But, while we grant to the
religion of the Natives complete toleration, it is not
necessary to conceal or compromise our own, or to let it
appear to be a matter of indifference to us whether the
Natives become converts to truth or not. And
undoubtedly there is in this country a strong opinion
prevailing that the course which has hitherto been
pursued may wisely and safely be modified. My Lords I
venture to specify a few points which I trust will be
hereafter observed in the administration of affairs in
India. First, that no distinction of caste be any longer
recognized. Secondly, that in all schools to which aid is
given by the Government the Bible shall be read—not
commented upon for its doctrines, but read for its facts.
Thirdly, that all connection on the part of the
Government with the rites and customs of an idolatrous
religion be entirely abolished, even if the object of such
connection be simply the preservation of order; that
those lands which have hitherto been employed for
idolatrous purposes, and of which I believe the Company
have become trustees, should be made over entirely to
the Natives themselves, so that this nation may be
altogether released from any participation in things
which are detestable in themselves, and scandalous to
the reputation of a Christian country. Fourthly, that
Native converts to Christianity should be admitted to all
employments the duties of which they can adequately
fulfil. In measures like these there is nothing that ought
to excite the suspicion of the Natives, nothing contrary
to the most perfect toleration, nothing savouring of
proselytism—it is merely an acknowledgment of the
religion we ourselves profess. And surely, my Lords, we
ought to look forward to the time when, under the
providence of God, India shall form no exception to the
multitude of countries in which truth has prevailed
against falsehood, and the Gospel has triumphed over
idolatry and superstition, so that in the end it may
appear why a remote country like England should have
been allowed to have dominion over the vast territory of
India’ [emphasis added].
The Archbishop of Canterbury has saved me the trouble of
having to explain the fundamental Christian premise behind
the policy of ‘toleration’. The Earl of Derby, the then British
prime minister Edward Smith-Stanley, who was in favour of
protection of all religions in Bharat, too was of the view that
missionary efforts in Bharat to Christianise the native
population should not be discouraged. The gulf between the
two points of view was merely a difference between the
overt and the covert, the express and the tacit. Following
were the views of the then British prime minister:
‘The Earl of Derby—My Lords, after what has fallen from
the most rev. Prelate, I may be permitted to observe,
that while I think that due protection ought to be given
to the professors of all religions in India, and nothing
should be done to discourage the efforts of Christian
missionaries in that country; on the other hand, I am
quite certain that it is essential to the interests, the
peace, and the well-being of India, if not also to the very
existence of our empire in India, that the Government
should carefully abstain from doing anything except to
give indiscriminate and impartial protection to all sects
and all creeds; and that nothing could be more
inconvenient or more dangerous on the part of the State
than any open and active assistance to any, or any
attempt to convert the Native population from their own
religions, however false and superstitious. My Lords, I
hope I misunderstood the most rev. Prelate when he
said that he should recommend the Government not in
the slightest degree to recognize the distinction of
caste. On that subject I will say, as far as the interest of
the public service is concerned, it is not desirable that
the same indulgence and punctilious deference for the
caste of the Natives entering that service as was
previously observed should be continued for the future;
but to say that you will not recognize caste at all in India
is to say that you will not recognize that which is
intimately interwoven with all the cherished feelings,
habits, associations, and most vital principles of the
people. Therefore, my Lords, while in the public service I
certainly would not allow prejudices of caste to interfere
with the discharge of the duties which any person may
voluntarily take upon himself, I say it is the bounden
duty of the Government to pay that attention to caste
which even in this country we pay, though not in the
same degree, to the different ranks of society, and
which any Government must, more or less, respect, if it
would not be brought into constant collision with all
classes of its subjects. There was one topic touched
upon by the most rev. Prelate in his observations with
which I entirely concur. Wherever property in land or in
any other form has been assigned to religious purposes,
however repugnant to our feelings, provided they do not
violate every principle of morality and decency, I think
that that property ought to continue to be scrupulously
applied to the ends to which it was dedicated. But I
agree with the most rev. Prelate that it is most desirable
that the Government and its officials should, as far as
possible, separate themselves from any active
interference in the detailed management of the property
devoted to the support of idolatrous ceremonies in
India. When I had the honour to hold the seals of the
Colonial Department I introduced this principle into
Ceylon, and required the arrangements under which the
Government officials in that island had previously acted
in regard to the Native rites and ceremonies to be
modified, while the management of the funds applicable
to such purposes was handed over to those with whose
opinions they better accorded. I think the Government
did its duty with credit then, as it will do its duty with
credit now, by withdrawing as much as possible from
any active participation in the detailed management of
property of this description, while it at the same time
strictly maintains the existing application of the
endowments’ [emphasis added].
To this, the Archbishop of Canterbury responded as follows:
The Archbishop of Canterbury—I wish, my Lords, to
explain that in speaking of caste I entirely referred to
the public services.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was committed to the
abolition of caste distinctions in the context of public
services, which on the face of it, is not objectionable.
However, the true objective behind the proposal was that no
native public employee would be allowed to observe the
rules of his caste during the course of public employment,
which was contrary to the policy prior to the 1857 Rebellion
that was caused by, among other things, the fear of caste
rules being violated by the use of greased cartridges.
Coming back to the debates, the Earl of Shaftesbury was
clear in his position that the British government should not
shy away from calling itself a Christian government and
proclaiming the superiority of the Christian religion as well
as it being the basis for the ‘best civilisation’. He also
elaborated on the meaning of ‘neutrality’ as follows:
The Earl of Shaftesbury—My Lords, I think it due to the
feelings of the country, which though recently silent,
has by no means been asleep on this subject, that some
expression of opinion should be given by your Lordships
before the Bill to regulate the future government of
India leaves this House. To nothing which has just fallen
from the noble Earl can any exception be reasonably
taken. I am exceedingly gratified, and I believe the
public will also be gratified, with the sentiments which
he has enunciated. Those sentiments are very much in
accordance with the petition which I had the honour to
present to your Lordships signed by the representatives
of all the bodies in this country engaged in the diffusion
of Christian knowledge and in the encouragement of
missionary operations. In that petition there is nothing
violent, nothing fanatical. The demand of the petitioners
is confined to what is strictly moderate and reasonable.
What they require is the assertion of the most
unbounded religious liberty in India; that the professors
of all religions without distinction, should be put upon a
footing of perfect equality. They say that in that country
in the eye of the law the professors of all religions must
be placed on a footing of equality; and they maintain
that in the selection of candidates for the public service,
there must be no rule but that of fitness for the public
service. No man must be chosen or rejected simply
because he is a Hindoo, a Parsee, a Mahommedan, or a
Christian: all must have an equal claim to serve the
State. I believe it would be prejudicial rather than
otherwise if the Government were to come forward and
give any direct assistance to the propagation of
Christianity. What the petitioners ask is that the
Government should neither promote that faith by active
measures, nor in any way retard it—that it should
neither be a favourer nor an opponent of Christianity.
They expect that reasonable protection shall be given to
all sects who conduct themselves with propriety. They
hope the Government will not be ashamed to avow by
its acts and in its official documents that it is a Christian
Government; that it looks upon Christianity as the best
form of religion and the best basis of all civilization; but
that, neither directly nor indirectly—by force, bribery, or
any other such inducement, great or small—will it
endeavour to turn any Native from the religion to which
he belongs. And this was the concluding prayer of the
petitioners:— ‘That all existing lets and hindrances
being removed, and no new ones being opposed, free
scope and action be given to the diffusion of Christianity
through Her Majesty’s territories in the East Indies.’…
My Lords, I believe that the Asiatics will submit to much
—to rapine, violence, spoliation, and oppression—but
submit to insult they will not; and I know of no one
single tiling that is more likely to retard the civilization
of that country and endanger the peace and security of
our empire than the continuance of such a state of
things. A great many preach the Gospel with their
mouths and others preach it by their lives. I am glad to
see the Gospel advanced by both these means; but I am
quite sure that no one single thing will more tend to
advance civilization, even more than the exertions of
the missionaries themselves, than that the language
and conduct of all persons should be in harmony with
the Gospel. The noble Earl will excuse me for having
brought forward this subject, but I felt that a
continuance of the present state of things would
produce such serious results that I could not help
expressing a hope that he will direct his attention to the
subject [emphasis added].
The following were the words of caution from the Earl of
Ellenborough:
The Earl of Ellenborough—…. With regard to a most
important matter—that of the future policy of the
Government with respect to religion in India—I ask your
Lordships to permit me to read a few sentences from
the last authoritative exposition of their policy, dated
only on the 13th of April last, in a letter from the Court
of Directors to the Governor General, published for the
information of your Lordships. In that letter are these
words:— ‘The Government will adhere with good faith to
its ancient policy of perfect neutrality in matters
affecting the religion of the people of India; and we most
earnestly caution all those in authority under it not to
afford by their conduct the least colour to the suspicion
that that policy has undergone or will undergo any
change. It is perilous for men in authority to do as
individuals that which they officially condemn. The real
intention of the Government will be inferred from their
acts, and they may unwittingly expose it to the greatest
of all dangers, that of being regarded with general
distrust by the people. We rely upon the honourable
feelings which have ever distinguished our service for
the furtherance of the views which we express. When
the Government of India makes a promise to the people
there must not be afforded to them grounds for a doubt
as to its fidelity to its word.’
The Bishop of London voiced his objections to the
management of Hindu temples by British officials, which
was the predecessor to the Hindu Religious and Charitable
Endowment legislations that are in force even today in
contemporary Bharat, as discussed in the previous chapter.
It is interesting how the Bishop balanced his views on the
so-called commitment to impartiality in matters of religion
and the superseding commitment to Christian truth,
Christian justice and Christian civilisation. That truth and
justice have a religious character, as opposed to the
religious neutrality that is imputed to them, is underscored
categorically by the words of the Bishop, which were as
follows:
The Bishop of London—Before your Lordships pass this
Bill I hope I may be permitted to make one or two
remarks. I understand that the point to which my most
rev. Brother alluded was the practice that has existed
for some years, of the Government taking into its own
hands the management of the lands by which the
heathen temples are supported. That practice has not
as yet altogether ceased, and the result is, that these
lands are kept in a far better state, and the heathen
temples are, therefore, much better maintained than if
the lands were under the control of those who would
squander the proceeds and use them to their own
advantage. The Government ought no longer to be
responsible for the maintenance of that religion in any
way. This is a matter of some importance, and we know
that, notwithstanding what we have often heard, some
change in this respect is desirable. The ancient
traditional policy and management in India, as to
religion, is not, indeed, likely to be altered; but there is a
deep feeling in the hearts of religious people in this
country that in that policy for many years back there
has been some mistake. I do not mean to say that
exaggerated statements were not from time to time
made upon this subject during the pressure of the
calamities of last year. But I think that when all
allowance is made for exaggeration it will still be found
that there is a deep-seated feeling in the hearts of
Englishmen that we do require some change in some of
these matters, and I think the speech of the noble Earl
at the head of the Government shows that we really are
disposed to look this matter fairly in the face. It would
not, I think, satisfy the feeling of the English nation if
this year were to pass over without our future
administration of India bearing upon it the shadow of
that great event which has so deeply afflicted the
nation, and which we cannot but regard as being in
some degree a visitation from God. No doubt, my Lords,
we ought to exercise the utmost impartiality towards
our heathen fellow-subjects. No doubt we ought to show
the greatest forbearance to them. No doubt the Church
of England and the Christian religion itself can never be
advanced by a policy of mere force and power on the
part of the Government. But we ought to show to the
people of India that we wish to give them, not only
Christian justice and Christian civilization, but, above all,
ultimately the inheritance of Christian truth [emphases
added].
Building on the views of the Bishop of London, the Bishop of
Oxford expounded on the difference between ‘Christian
truth’ and ‘wicked neutrality’, obviously imputing the former
meaning to the official policy of toleration and neutrality.
The Bishop of Oxford—I think, my Lords, that we can
have very little doubt what the conduct of a Christian
Government ought to be; but I confess that I heard with
some misgivings the extract which was read by the
noble Earl below me (the Earl of Shaftesbury), especially
when accompanied with the emphasis which the noble
Earl threw upon certain expressions which are well
capable of being understood in two different ways. If by
the ‘neutrality’ which was referred to nothing more was
meant than that there should be no attempt on the part
of the Government as a Government, directly or
indirectly to interfere with the religious belief of its
heathen subjects, I for one cannot object to that word
being taken in its fullest sense. But if by ‘neutrality’ is
secretly meant that there shall be stamped on the
English Government and their representatives in India
an aspect of entire indifference as to whether this
religion or that is to prosper and abide—if by ‘neutrality’
is meant that their characters are to exhibit that happy
indifference as to Christianity which shall impress on the
heathen mind the conviction that they care not whether
they are Christians or heathens, then I believe that such
neutrality would be fatal and false to the religion we
profess, and that ultimately it would destroy the empire
that has been entrusted to us. It seems to me that the
distinction is plain and intelligible between making the
Indian people feel that we do not by force and fraud, by
policy or by violence, interfere with their religious belief,
because our own religion teaches us that such
interference would be wrong, and impressing them with
the conviction that we withhold our interference
because we have ourselves no distinct preference for
our own faith. One seems to me to be the line of
Christian truth, and the other to be the line of a wicked
neutrality; and I am only most anxious that nothing
should go forth to mar the impression that we do not
mean the English Government in India to be ashamed of
its Christianity; but that we wish it to make due
provision for the supply of the Christian necessities of its
own troops and civil servants, because it believes
Christianity to be true, and is not afraid in the face of its
heathen subjects to show that it believes it to be true,
and that it builds its own expectations of its continued
prosperity upon the blessing of that God whom it
professes to serve. I trust that that is the only sense in
which neutrality as to the Christian religion is to be
admitted into the future Government of India; and I
think it the more important to declare this, because I
cannot but feel that there have been in times past many
instances in which neutrality was understood to mean
carelessness about the truth of Christianity and a fear to
avow in the face of heathendom that we were ourselves
firm believers in the Christian revelation [emphasis
added].
That the policy of neutrality advocated by the then prime
minister was conducive to the gradual spread of Christianity
is corroborated by the views of Earl Granville, who said it in
as many words as follows:
Earl Granville—I think that the meaning of the words
quoted by the noble Earl is very obvious—that the
Government is not to interfere in any manner with the
religion of its subjects in India; that it is not in its official
capacity to use either force or corruption for the
purposes of proselytism. I may say that it gave me great
pleasure to hear the declaration which was made by the
noble Earl at the head of the Government. I think that it
was most useful and important—most useful with regard
to the influence which it will produce upon the opinions
of people in this country, and most important not only
with respect to the temporal interests of the
government in India, but as indicating the most
advantageous system for the gradual spread of
Christianity in that large kingdom. With regard to the
policy of mercy which has been advocated this evening,
I feel no distrust of Her Majesty’s Government in that
respect, and I am quite sure that there need be no fear
of Lord Canning. It gives me great satisfaction to find
the general concurrence which is now expressed by all
in regard to that discrimination of punishment and to
those principles of mercy for which the noble Lord made
himself so very conspicuous last autumn, and then
subjected himself to so much rebuke [emphasis added].
It is evident from this that the Christian hope that Christian
freedom/toleration and Christian neutrality would gradually
bring the idolatrous heathen from the darkness of his/her
false religion into the light of the one true religion is a
constant undercurrent that runs through each of the views.
In light of all of this irrefutable material, it is my considered
position that there is no reason to read and understand the
Queen’s Proclamation of 1 November 1858 as being any
different in its intent and import from the views of the
members of the British Parliament, including the then prime
minister. It is in this context that the passing of the 1858 Act
must be understood, instead of making the erroneous
assumption that the administrative structure laid down by
the Act was intended to address only issues of ‘secular’
governance. If anything, the word ‘secular’ must always be
understood as ‘Christian secular’, since the Christian
worldview was inherent to the colonial infrastructure.
Therefore, the transfer of territories and government of
British India to the Crown under the Act marked the
beginning of a direct Christian ‘civilising’ phase for Bharat,
which was partially held back until then due to the
mercantile pragmatism of the Company. After all, the
missionary clauses in the Charter Acts of 1813 and 1833
were not included at the behest of the Company, but were
included at the behest of the British Parliament, which
would thenceforth directly govern Bharat by virtue of the
1858 Act. In any case, perhaps, what most people do not
pay attention to is the Preamble of these Acts, which
inevitably contained the following portion:
And whereas it is expedient that the said Territories
should be governed by and in the Name of Her Majesty:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent
Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this
present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of
the same, as follows; that is to say, Transfer of the
Government of India to Her Majesty [emphasis added].
The reference to ‘Lords Spiritual’ precedes Temporal and
Commons; the Lords Spiritual, of course, being the Bishops
of the Church of England, numbering 26 since the early 19th
century, with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York
holding a higher rank than the other Bishops. Critically, the
Christian divide between the spiritual and temporal or
secular, which I have discussed extensively in the earlier
chapters, is expressly captured in the very language of the
Charter Act and the Government of India Acts. There was
certainly no attempt on the part of the British government
to conceal or skirt around its Christian identity and the
foundations of its infrastructure in Christian political
theology. Surely it cannot be contended that a Parliament
which legally provided (and still does) for the presence of 26
Bishops representing Christianity was a secular Parliament.
Why, then, do we attempt to hyper-secularise what was
essentially a Christian establishment when statutory facts,
not merely opinion, coming straight from the horse’s mouth,
speak for themselves? Is this not coloniality or colonial
consciousness at work?
Coming to the 1858 Act, in over 40 provisions, the Act
stripped the Company of all and any powers of consequence
over Bharat and transferred it to the Crown of the Christian
British Empire. While the issue of granting representation to
Indians arose during the debates in the British Parliament
relating to the 1858 Act, the Parliament decided against it
on the grounds that a significant cross-section of natives
were still up in arms against the British on account of the
latter’s barbarity in quelling the 1857 Rebellion. Following
are some of the salient provisions of the 1858 Act:
Section 01: Territories under the Government of the East
India Company to Be Vested in Her Majesty and Powers
to Be Exercised in Her Name
The Government of the Territories now in the
Possession or under the Government of the East India
Company, and all Powers in relation to Government
vested in or exercised by the said Company in trust for
Her Majesty, shall cease to be vested in or exercised by
the said Company; and all territories in the possession
or under the government of the said Company, and all
rights vested in or which if this Act had not been passed
might have been exercised by the said Company in
relation to any territories, shall become vested in Her
Majesty, and be exercised in her name; and for the
purposes of this Act India shall mean the territories
vested in Her Majesty as aforesaid, and all Territories
which may become vested in Her Majesty by virtue of
any such Rights as aforesaid.
Section 02: India to Be Governed By and in the Name
of Her Majesty
India shall be governed by and in the Name of Her
Majesty, and all rights in relation to any territories which
might have been exercised by the said Company if this
Act had not been passed shall and may be exercised by
and in the name of Her Majesty as rights incidental to
the government of India; and all the territorial and other
revenues of or arising in India, and all tributes and other
payments in respect of any territories which would have
been receivable by or in the name of the said Company
if this Act had not been passed, shall be received for
and in the name of Her Majesty, and shall be applied
and disposed of for the purposes of the government of
India alone, subject to the provisions of this Act.
Section 03: Secretary of State to Exercise Powers Now
Exercised by the Company, Etc
Save as herein otherwise provided, one of Her
Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State shall have and
perform all such or the like powers and duties in
anywise relating to the government or revenues of
India, and all such or the like powers over all officers
appointed or continued under this Act, as might or
should have been exercised or performed by the East
India Company, or by the Court of Directors or Court of
Proprietors of the said Company, either alone or by the
direction or with the sanction or Approbation of the
Commissioners for the Affairs of India in relation to such
government or revenues, and the officers and servants
of the said Company respectively, and also all such
powers as might have been exercised by the said
Commissioners alone: Countersigning of warrants—and
any warrant or writing under Her Majesty’s Royal Sign
Manual, which by the Government of India Act, 1854, or
otherwise is required to be countersigned by the
President of the Commissioners for the Affairs of India,
shall in lieu of being so countersigned be countersigned
by one of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State.
Section 29: Appointments to Be Made by or with the
Approbation of Her Majesty
The Appointments of Governor-General of India,
Fourth Ordinary Member of the Council of the GovernorGeneral of India, and Governors of Presidencies in India,
now made by the Court of Directors with the
Approbation of Her Majesty, and the Appointments of
Advocate-General for the several Presidencies now
made with the Approbation of the Commissioners for the
affairs of India, shall be made by Her Majesty by Warrant
under Her Royal Sign Manual; the Appointments of the
Ordinary Members of the Council of the GovernorGeneral of India, except the Fourth Ordinary Member
and the Appointments of the Members of the Council of
the several Presidencies, shall be made by the Secretary
of State in Council; the Appointments of the Lieutenant
Governors of Provinces or Territories shall be made by
the Governor-General of India, subject to the
Approbation of Her Majesty; and all such Appointments
shall be subject to the Qualifications now by Law
affecting such Offices respectively.
Section 32: Secretary of State in Council to Make
Regulations for the Admission of Candidates to the Civil
Service of India
With all convenient Speed after the passing of this
Act, Regulations shall be made by the Secretary of State
in Council, with the Advice and Assistance of the
Commissioners for the Time being acting in execution of
Her Majesty’s Order in Council of Twenty-first May One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, ‘for regulating the
Admission of Persons to the Civil Service of the Crown’,
for admitting all Persons being natural-born Subjects of
Her Majesty (and of such Age and Qualifications as may
be prescribed in this Behalf) who may be desirous of
becoming Candidates for Appointment to the Civil
Service of India to be examined as Candidates
accordingly, and for prescribing the Branches of
Knowledge in which such Candidates shall be examined,
and generally for regulating and conducting such
Examinations under the Superintendence of the said
last-mentioned Commissioners, or of the Persons for the
Time being entrusted with the carrying out of such
Regulations as may be from Time to Time established by
her Majesty for Examination, Certificate, or other Test of
Fitness in relation to Appointments to Junior Situations in
the Civil Service of the Crown; and the Candidates who
may be certified by the said Commissioners or other
Persons as aforesaid to be entitled under such
Regulations shall be recommended for Appointment
according to the Order of their Proficiency as shown by
such Examinations, and such Persons only as shall have
been so certified as aforesaid shall be appointed or
admitted to the Civil Service of India by the Secretary of
State in Council: Provided always, that all Regulations to
be made by the said Secretary of State in Council under
this Act shall be laid before Parliament within Fourteen
Days after the making thereof, if Parliament be sitting,
and, if Parliament be not sitting, then. within Fourteen
Days after the next Meeting thereof.
Between 1858 and 1919–1920, a few more Government of
India Acts were passed, which built on the basic template of
the 1858 Act, apart from representative legislative councils
which were constituted under the Indian Councils Acts of
1861, 1874, 1892 and 1909 (also known as Minto–Morley
Reforms) and the Government of India Act of 1915.10 This
period also saw the Home Rule Scheme of 1889, which was
the first attempt towards securing the right of franchise to
Indians and Indian representation in the legislative councils,
and the preparation of the Constitution of India Bill, 1895
(also known as the Home Rule Bill), most probably drafted
under the stewardship of Lokamanya Balgangadhar Tilak.11
However, given the specific focus of the discussion at
hand, namely the examination of Bharat’s constitutional
journey for the influence of coloniality, I will discuss only
those developments, which prove that over the years, there
was no change in the colonial consciousness of the coloniser
notwithstanding the setting up of representative legislative
bodies. This is because these bodies operated within the
political theology of Christianity, as we shall see from the
literature, and Indians participated in these institutions,
perhaps without paying attention to the unsecular nature of
the underlying theology that informed such institutions. In a
nutshell, my intention is to demonstrate that the 1858
Proclamation of religious neutrality by Queen Victoria
provided an optically convenient veneer to the evangelical
and civilising tendencies of the colonial administration,
evident from their conduct as well as their own discussions
in both international fora and in the British Parliament.
For instance, this petition moved by the Bishop of Oxford
on behalf of the residents of Ham in the House of Lords on 6
July 1860 demonstrates the clear intentions to fully
Christianise education in India by introducing the study of
the Bible in government schools across the country12:
The Bishop of Oxford presented a Petition from
Inhabitants of Ham, praying that the Holy Scriptures
may not be excluded by Authority from the Government
Schools in India. He said he did not intend to enter at
length upon the great question to which the petition
referred. Their Lordships had recently had an
opportunity of hearing all that could be said upon the
subject stated ably, completely, and temperately by the
noble Duke on the cross-benches (the Duke of
Marlborough), and he felt it would be improper for him
to attempt to repeat the arguments and statements
which had been already submitted to the House. He
was, however, anxious, in the first place, to do away
with an impression which might probably prevail in the
public mind from the mode in which the discussion on a
previous evening had terminated. It might appear to the
country that the noble Duke (the Duke of Marlborough)
stood alone in that House in the opinions which he had
expressed. Now, that was very far from being the case.
He (the Bishop of Oxford) had been ready and desirous
of stating how entirely he concurred in the sentiments
expressed by the noble Duke, but the mode in which the
discussion terminated prevented his doing so. He was
also anxious to suggest two grave considerations to the
Government in connection with the subject. He had laid
upon the table fifty petitions from various parts of the
country with the same prayer as that of the petition he
now held in his hand, that the Bible might be introduced
into the schools in India; but he was fully persuaded
they were not a tithe of the petitions which would pour
in upon both Houses of Parliament upon this grave
subject, and he would venture to predict that in a
matter like this, upon which the religious mind of the
people of this country was to a remarkable degree
unanimous—when those who differed upon many points
of Church government were united in opinion that the
Bible ought not to be excluded from the Government
schools in India, but that it should be accessible in
school hours to all those who desired to study it—that at
no distant day that question would be brought to a
practical and a successful issue. If there was any danger
at all to be apprehended, it would arise from a belief
being raised in India that the Government resisted the
demand that was made because they thought it would
be an infraction of the fair dealing which had been
guaranteed to those who differed from us in religion,
and that if the demand were carried it would be carried
by the religious mind of this country in spite of the
wishes of the Government. Such a belief would lead to
an impression, untrue, indeed, that the admission of the
Bible into schools was something at which they had
ground to be alarmed, and which constituted a violation
of religious liberty. For his own part he believed that
sooner or later the Bible would have to be introduced
into these schools, and he was of opinion that it would
be much safer to introduce it now, than to postpone it to
a later period. It would be a danger in its worst form if
the question was left as a subject for agitation in this
country. He thought, also, that the introduction of the
Bible taking place after an interval would be an evil,
because the Native mind would form an opinion that we
feared to do so as long as the recollection of the late
mutiny remained in our minds, but that only when the
memory of that event had passed away did we venture
to take the step. There was another consideration he
would urge upon the Government. He did not
undervalue the dangers of our Indian Empire, but he
was convinced that those dangers did not rest upon our
simply giving fair play to Christianity, while we
cautiously abstained from attempting to inflict
Christianity by force, and from entrapping the Natives
into Christianity by fraud. Our security would he greater
if the Native mind could be taught that we abstained
from those courses, not from fear, but because our
consciences forbade them. The great danger was that in
turning our attention to a false danger, we might
overlook the real source of danger. The mode in which
the question of Native adoption had been treated was,
he believed, full of danger, as also was the annexation
policy, and he believed also the proposed change in our
army system in India. He was therefore most anxious,
without reopening this great subject, to urge as
earnestly as he could upon the Government a
reconsideration of the position they had taken upon this
grave question [emphases added].
The Earl of Galloway enthusiastically endorsed this proposal
thus:
The Earl of Galloway
sincerely hoped the Government would give their
earnest attention to the appeal of the right rev. Prelate.
It was highly inconsistent with our promise to elevate
and improve the condition of the Natives of India if we
excluded from our schools in that country the Bible,
which was the only standard of right and wrong. It was
said that the fear of exciting distrust among the Natives
and of weakening our hold upon. India was a necessity
for excluding the Bible; but that would imply that we
valued the material welfare of England more than we
cared for the moral condition of India. In a speech lately
delivered by Sir Herbert Edwardes on the propagation of
Christianity among the Natives that distinguished officer
had expressed opinions which he commended to the
consideration of the Government, and which he
earnestly hoped would have their due influence
[emphasis added].
It bears noting from the extracted portions here that this
discussion took place in 1860, that is, barely under two
years of the end of the 1857 Rebellion and the Proclamation
of November 1858. If the Proclamation was truly intended to
prevent and deter further missionary work in Bharat, the
proposal of the Bishop of Oxford proves otherwise. In fact, it
demonstrates the artificial separation that the British
Christian mind had created for itself. It distinguished
between interference with the religion of the natives and
the proselytising work carried out by missionaries in Bharat.
The latter was not seen as an infraction of the former. This
convenient distinction allowed the British coloniser to
continue with the façade of neutrality and was further proof
of the actual meaning of Christian toleration. It effectively
meant ‘Sure, practice your heathen faith but I will continue
to denigrate and undermine it through my missionary work
until you yield and have a change of heart and conscience.’
That they were utterly convinced of the inextricability of
conversion to Christianity and moral improvement of the
natives, underscores the Christianisation of morality and
secularisation of Christianity at the same time.
In any case, did the British government stop its
expenditure from revenues earned in Bharat on the Church
establishment in Bharat after the Proclamation of 1858 to
prove its secular and neutral credentials? No. This is
demonstrated by the question raised in the House of
Commons on 28 September 1915 in relation to the
Ecclesiastical establishment in India, which is extracted
below13:
Mr. Dundas White
asked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view
of the financial provisions as to the ecclesiastical
establishment which are now consolidated in Part X. of
the Government of India Act, 1915, he will give a
detailed statement showing what were the payments
out of the revenues of India during the last financial
year for which figures are available in respect of the
salary and allowances to each bishop and archdeacon
mentioned in Section 118 (1); of the expenses of
episcopal visitations in Section 118 (3); of payments of
representatives of bishops in Section 119; of the
pensions to bishops in Section 120; of the salaries to
chaplains of the Church of Scotland in Section 122; and
of the Grants to any other sect, persuasion, or
community of Christians, under Section 123; and if he
will state the aggregate for that year of these
ecclesiastical endowments out of the revenues of India
[emphasis added]?
To this, the then Secretary of State for India, Joseph Austen
Chamberlain, gave a detailed break-up for the financial year
in question which is as follows:
Towards stipends of Bishops of Calcutta, Madras and
Bombay and the allowances of Archdeacons of the said
Presidencies—Rupees 1,05,543
The allowances of the Archdeacons were in addition to
their salaries as Senior Chaplains on the Ecclesiastical
Establishments.
Towards expenses of episcopal visitations—Rupees
15,611
Towards payments of pensions to Bishops—£1,800
Towards salaries of Chaplains of Church of Scotland
(exclusive of payments to Presbyterian Chaplains
attached to regiments which are treated as Army
expenditure)—Rupees 94,404
Grants to religious bodies other than Church of
England and Church of Scotland—Allowances to Bishops
and Priests of Church of Rome and for upkeep of
churches (exclusive of payments to Priests attached to
regiments which are treated as Army expenditure)—
Rupees 20,122
This cumulatively amounted to £17,512 in 1914–15. Clearly,
a portion of the revenues earned from Bharat, no matter
how miniscule the quantum may seem, was being diverted
towards maintenance of the Christian establishment in
Bharat, a full 57 years after the Queen’s Proclamation of
1858. Either there was a slip between the cup and the lip, or
it was an intended slip. In short, it can be stated objectively
that a government with an avowedly Christian character
was and remains fundamentally incapable of being neutral
and impartial in matters of religion, much less in relation to
the ‘false religion’ of the ‘heathen native’.
As we shall see in the next chapter, this fact is clearly
demonstrated yet again in the convergence of international
events leading to the founding of the League of Nations,
such as the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the
debates in the British Parliament surrounding the passing of
the Government of India Act of 1919. The ensuing material
will show that international law was used as a springboard
and a force multiplier to give effect to universalisation of the
Christian political theology which forms the basis of the
European/Western civilisation. To assume that Bharat was
an outlier to this global development would be ahistorical in
light of the cogitations held in the British Parliament prior to
and in relation to the GoI Act of 1919.
11
The Standard of Civilisation, the
League of Nations and the
Government of India Act, 1919
The Peace Congress at the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles,
29 June 1919 (Drawing by George Scott from
L’Illustration)
‘Nationalist’ attempts to secure ‘Home Rule’ for Indians
were active at least since 1889; however, the movement
towards greater democratic participation of Indians in the
business of law-making and administration of Bharat, albeit
as part of the British Empire, picked up steam upon the
outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Indian nationalists
sensed an opportunity to present to the British a scheme for
post-war reforms in response to growing political discontent
in Bharat. Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s ‘Political Testament of
1914’ stands out in this regard since it addressed the issue
of ‘provincial autonomy’ with a certain degree of specificity.
Subsequently, in October 1916, a Memorandum of post-war
reforms was presented to the then Viceroy of India, Lord
Chelmsford, by 19 non-elected members of the Imperial
Legislative Council, which included Mahamana Madan
Mohan Malaviya and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The
Memorandum outlined a 13-point scheme for selfgovernment in Bharat. By December 1916, a scheme for
self-government devised and formally approved by
members of both the Indian National Congress and the
Muslim League, known as the Congress–League Scheme,
was passed at their respective annual sessions.1
The consequence of the growing chorus for selfgovernment and the recognition of Bharat’s contribution to
the British war effort, both in terms of human resources and
capital, was a declaration on 20 August 19172 in the House
of Commons by the then Secretary of State for India Edwin
Samuel Montagu, which read as follows:
The policy of His Majesty’s Government, which the
government of India are in complete accord is that of
increasing association of Indians in every branch of
administration, and the Gradual development of selfgoverning Institutions with a view to the progressive
realization of responsible governments in India as an
Integral part of the British Empire. They have decided
that substantial steps in this direction should be taken
as soon as possible.
I would add that progress in this policy can only be
achieved by successive stages. The British Government
and the Government of India, on whom the
responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of
the Indian peoples, must be the judges of the time and
measure of each advance [emphases added].
Indian nationalists saw this Declaration as an attempt by the
British to defer ‘self-government’ by replacing it with
‘responsible government’, which was obviously not
acceptable. Therefore, when Montagu arrived in India in
November 1917 to ostensibly hold parleys with various
groups, the Congress–League Scheme on self-government
was pitched to him by various organisations. These and
other efforts by a variety of stakeholders, primarily the
Congress and the League, ultimately culminated in the
preparation of the Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms
by Montagu along with the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford, which
was completed in Simla on 22 April 1918 and published on 8
July 1918.3 The importance of these Reforms, which were
popularly known as the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms or the
Montford Reforms for short, in Bharat’s constitutional
journey is evident from the fact that they formed the direct
basis of the Government of India Act of 1919.4
For all practical purposes, it could be said that the
Government of India Act of 1919 was the first British-made
Constitution for India, which provided the foundation for the
Government of India Act of 1935. The 1935 Act, in turn,
provided the broader framework for the Constitution of
independent India, as admitted by the Chairman of the
Drafting Committee of the Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar, in
the Constituent Assembly Debates.5 Since the foundational
document is the Montford Report, those who wish to
understand
the
origins
of
independent
Bharat’s
constitutional framework must read the 256-page Report
which, among other things, is a one-stop shop of sorts to
understand the evolution of the British politico-legal and
administrative infrastructure in Bharat. The Report consists
of 11 chapters and a conclusion, but I will discuss only those
portions that are relevant to the theme of the discussion at
hand, namely colonial consciousness and its influence on
contemporary constitutionalism.
In Chapter VII of Part I of the Report, the authors rejected
the Congress–League scheme for self-government citing its
‘unworkability in practice’ and its ‘negation of responsible
government’. In short, according to Montagu and
Chelmsford, Bharat was not ready for self-government even
within the British Empire. In Part II of the Report, the
proposals of the authors are set out along with the reasons
in Paragraphs 178–199. These portions of the Report,
according to me, are mandatory reading to understand the
continuing colonial consciousness and civilising tendencies
of the Christian coloniser. Here are a few extracts which
speak for themselves, lest it is assumed that I am reading
the document with a confirmation bias:
Reasons for a new policy
178. … It is evident that the present machinery of
government no longer meets the needs of the time; it
works slowly, and it produces irritation; there is a
widespread demand on the part of educated Indian
opinion for its alteration; and the need for advance is
recognized by official opinion also. One hundred and
twenty years ago Sir Thomas Munro wrote:‘What is to be the final result of our arrangements on
the character of the people? Is it to be raised, or is it to
be lowered? Are we to be satisfied with merely securing
our power and protecting the inhabitants, or are we to
endeavour to raise their character, to render them
worthy of filling higher stations in the management of
their country, and devising plans for its improvement?
.... We should look on India not as a temporary
possession, but as one which is to be maintained
permanently, until the natives shall in some future age
have abandoned most of their superstitions and
prejudices, and become sufficiently enlightened to
frame a regular government for themselves, and to
conduct and preserve it.’
The logical outcome of the past
179. Thus the vision of a persistent endeavour to train
the people of India for the task of governing themselves
was present to the minds of some advanced Englishmen
four generations ago; and we since have pursued it
more constantly than our critics always admit, more
constantly perhaps than we have always perceived
ourselves. The inevitable result of education in the
history and thought of Europe is the desire for selfdetermination; and the demand that now meets us from
the educated classes of India is no more than the right
and natural outcome of the work of a hundred years.
There can be no question of going back, or of
withholding the education and enlightenment in which
we ourselves believe; and yet, the more we pursue our
present course without at the same time providing the
opportunities for the satisfaction of the desires which it
creates, the more unpopular and difficult must our
present government become and the worse must be the
effect upon the mind of India. On the other hand, if we
make it plain that, when we start on the new lines,
education, capacity, and good-will will have their reward
in power, then we shall set the seal upon the work of
past years. Unless we are right, in going forward now
the whole of our past policy in India has been a mistake.
We believe, however, that no other policy was either
right or possible, and therefore we must now face its
logical consequences. Indians must be enabled, in so far
as they attain responsibility, to determine for
themselves what they want done. The process will begin
in local affairs which we have long since intended and
promised to make over to them; the time has come for
advance also in some subjects of provincial concern;
and it will proceed to the complete control of provincial
matters and thence, in the course of time, and subject
to the proper discharge of Imperial responsibilities, to
the control of matters concerning all India.. We make it
plain that such limitations on powers as we are now
proposing are due only to the obvious fact that time is
necessary in order to train both ·representatives and
electorates for the work which we desire them to
undertake; and that we offer Indians opportunities at
short intervals to prove the progress they are making
and to make good their claim not by the method of
agitation, but by positive demonstration, to the further
stages in self-government which we have just indicated.
180. Further, we have every reason to hope that as
the result of this process, India’s connexion with the
Empire will be confirmed by the wishes of her people.
The experience of a century of experiments within the
Empire goes all in one direction. As power is given to
the people of a province or of a dominion to manage
their own local affairs, their attachment becomes the
stronger to the Empire which comprehends them all in a
common bond of union. The existence of national
feeling, or the love of, and pride in, a national culture
need not conflict with, and may indeed strengthen, the
sense of membership in a wider commonwealth. The
obstacles to a growth in India of this sense of
partnership in the Empire are obvious enough.
Differences of race, religion, past history, and civilization
have to be overcome. But the Empire, which includes
the French of Canada and the Dutch of South Africa—to
go no further—cannot in any case be based on ties of
race alone. It must depend on a common realization of
the ends for which the Empire exists, the maintenance
of peace and order over wide spaces of territory, the
maintenance of freedom, and the development of the
culture of each national unity of which the Empire is
composed. These are aims which appeal to the
imagination of India and, in proportion as selfgovernment develops patriotism in India, we may hope
to see the growth of a conscious feeling of organic unity
with the Empire as a whole [emphases added].
From this quote, it is clear that one of the primary goals
behind the proposal of constitutional reforms, which finally
found their way into the Government of India Act of 1919,
was to rid the natives of their ‘superstitions and prejudices’
and strengthen their bonds with the British Empire. It was a
project of eternal ‘reform’ through the means of a
constitution whose ultimate goal was the colonialisation of
the natives, which was inbuilt in the Montford scheme. The
authors of the Report were also aware that the education
system introduced in Bharat by the British had unexpectedly
backfired since it had only served to strengthen existing
ideas of freedom. Therefore, to offset the effect of the
English education system without altering it altogether,
‘responsible government’ as opposed to ‘self-government’
within the British Empire was being proposed, to gradually
‘educate’ and ‘prepare’ natives for self-governance without
losing any of their love for the British imperial
commonwealth. It goes without saying that the authors of
the Report clearly understood the causal relationship
between the education system and ideas that drive a
society’s polity.
Of course, the Montford Report must also be read for its
impact on the structure of Bharat’s Constitution, such as the
introduction of Central and Provincial Legislatures, the
creation of Central and Provincial Lists (that is, lists of
subjects they could legislate on), streamlining of the Indian
Civil Service and so on and so forth. But its underlying
objective, which was to strengthen the bonds between the
natives and the British commonwealth, must not be lost
sight of. The purpose of the proposed politico-legal
framework was to co-opt the native into the coloniser’s
worldview. This is evident from the Conclusion of the Report
in Paragraph 349, which is as follows:
CONCLUSION
Conception of India’s future
349. We may conveniently now gather up our proposals,
so as to, present a general picture of the progress which
we intend and of the nature and order of the steps to be
taken on the road. Our conception of the eventual future
of India is a sisterhood of States, self-governing in all
matters of purely local or provincial interest, in some
cases corresponding to existing provinces, in others
perhaps modified in area according to the character and
economic interests of their people. Over this congeries
of States would preside a central Government,
increasingly representative of and responsible to the
people of all of them; dealing with matters, both internal
and external, of common interest to the whole of India;
acting as arbiter in inter-state relations; and
representing the interests of all India on equal terms
with the self-governing units of the British Empire. In
this picture there is a place also for the Native States
(Princely States). It is possible that they too will wish to
be associated for certain purposes with the organization
of British India in such a way as to dedicate their
peculiar qualities to the common service without loss of
individuality [emphasis added].
The sanctimony of the British coloniser, his concern for the
‘European community’ and his expectation of gratitude from
Indians for ‘India’s material prosperity’, which is owed to
Europeans, is captured brilliantly in Paragraph 344 of the
Report, extracted as follows:
(iv) THE NON-OFFICIAL COMMUNITY.
The European commercial community
344. We cannot conclude without taking into due
account the presence of a considerable community of
non-official Europeans in India. In the main, they are
engaged in commercial enterprises; but besides these
are the missions, European and American, which in
furthering education, building up character and
inculcating healthier domestic habits have done work
for which India should be grateful. There are also an
appreciable number of retired Officials and others whose
working life has been given to India, settled in the
cooler parts of the country. When complaints are rife
that European commercial interests are selfish and drain
the country of wealth which it ought to retain, it is well
to remind ourselves how much of, India’s material
prosperity is due to European commerce. It is true that
those engaged in commerce mix less than officials with
educated Indians, and that may be a reason why the
latter do not always recognize their claim on India’s
consideration. Like commercial people all the world over
Englishmen in business in India are frankly uninterested
in politics; many of them would readily admit that they
have taken insufficient part both in municipal business
and the business of government. Our concern, however,
is not so much with the past as with the future. From
discussions with them we know that many of them
accept the trend of events, and are fully prepared to see
Indian political development proceed. India has
benefited enormously by her commercial development
in European hands: nor is the benefit less because it
was incidental and not the purpose of the undertaking.
What then are the obligations of the various parties?
Clearly it is the duty of British commerce in India to
identify itself with the interests of India, which are
higher than the interests of any community; to take part
in political life; to use its considerable wealth and
opportunities to commend itself to India; and having
demonstrated both its value and its good intentions, to
be content to rest like other industries on the new
foundation of government in the wishes of the people.
No less is it the duty of Indian politicians to respect the
expectations which have been implicitly held out; to
remember how India has profited by commercial
development which only British capital and enterprise
achieved; to bethink themselves that though the capital
invested in private enterprises was not borrowed under
any assurance that the existing form of government
would endure. Yet the favourable terms on which money
was obtained for India’s development were undoubtedly
affected by the fact of British rule; and to abstain from
advocating preferential treatment aimed not so much at
promoting Indian as at injuring British commerce. Finally
it is our duty to reserve to the Government the power to
protect any industry from prejudiced attack or privileged
competition. This obligation is imposed upon it, if not by
history, at least by the duty of protecting capital, credit
and indeed property without discrimination [emphases
added].
Was there anything in the Report on Christian Missionary
activity in Bharat? Of course there was. Here is Paragraph
345, which captures in a nutshell the British policy of
‘toleration’ and ‘neutrality’:
Mission Work
345. To the missions we would apply the same
principle. It is difficult to overestimate the devoted and
creative work which missionary money and enterprise
are doing in the fields of education, morals and
sanitation. Here also we reserve to the Government a
power of judgment and of effective intervention. If
missionary efforts were to assume a form that aroused
widespread alarm in Indian minds, or if orthodox Hindu
or Muslim zeal sought to impose disabilities which would
lead to India’s necessities losing the material and moral
benefits which missions afford, we should hold it to be
the duty ·or the Government which is responsible to
Parliament to step in and apply the remedy [emphasis
added].
The support to Christian missionary work, the veiled threat
of government intervention in the event of disruption, and
the expectation of gratitude from the natives for missionary
work could not have been more express, even after 60 years
of the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858, which ostensibly
guaranteed protection to the native’s faith. Since it is
undisputed that the Montford Reforms directly influenced
the framework and provisions of the 1919 Act, it must be
presumed that the Christian ‘civilising’ intent of the Reforms
were meant to and did indeed inform the 1919 Act. Some
may contend that such a conclusion is tenuous because
there was nothing in the 1919 Act to suggest this intent. To
foreclose such an argument, here’s Section 25(3)(v) of the
Act which speaks for itself:
(3) The proposals of the Governor-General in Council for
the appropriation of revenue or moneys relating to the
following heads of expenditure shall not be submitted to
the vote of the legislative assembly, nor shall they be
open to discussion by either chamber at the time when
the annual statement is under consideration, unless the
Governor-General otherwise directs—
(v) expenditure classified by the order of the
Governor-General in Council as—
(a) ecclesiastical [emphasis added]
This provision clearly exempts the decision of the GovernorGeneral in Council in relation to ecclesiastical expenditure
from any scrutiny except at the discretion of the GovernorGeneral. This alone is sufficient to underscore the Christian
character of the Government of India Act of 1919.
From the debates held in the British Parliament during the
passing of the Act, what is relevant is the reference to
Bharat’s founding membership of the League of Nations,
which was brought up by Montagu on 5 June 1919 in the
House of Commons during the second reading of the
Government of India Bill of 19196:
I come now to the Bill itself. What I would like to do, if I
may, is to start afresh and try to take the House with
me, if I can and if it is not too ambitious a project, in
realising that if you start from the place where the
authors of this Bill started, the form of the Bill and the
recommendations of the Bill are inevitable. Where did
we start? We started with the pronouncement of the
20th August, 1917. I propose to ask: Is there anybody
who questions to-day the policy of that pronouncement?
It is no use accepting it unless you mean it; it is no use
meaning it unless you act upon it; and it is no use acting
upon it unless your actions are in conformity with it.
Therefore, I take it that Parliament, or at any rate this
House, will agree that the policy of the pronouncement
of the 20th August must be the basis of our discussion—
the progressive realisation of responsible government,
progressive realisation, realisation by degrees, by
stages, by steps—and those steps must at the outset be
substantial. That pronouncement was made in order to
achieve what I believe is the only logical, the only
possible, the only acceptable meaning of Empire and
Democracy, namely, an opportunity to all nations flying
the Imperial flag to control their own destinies. [An
Honourable Member: ‘Nations!’] I will come to nations in
a moment. I will beg no question. The Honourable
Member raises the question of nations. Whether it be a
nation or not, we have promised to India the progressive
realisation of responsible government. We have
promised to India and given to India a representation
like that of the Dominions on our Imperial Conference.
India is to be an original member of the League of
Nations. Therefore I say, whatever difficulties there may
be in your path, your Imperial task is to overcome those
difficulties and to help India on the path of nationality,
however much you may recognise—and I propose to ask
the House to consider them—the difficulties which lie in
the path.
…. Perorations on Indian affairs have a tendency to
great similarity; at least the perorations of my speeches
on Indian affairs always seem so. I cannot, however—
and I say it once again—believe that Parliament is going
to afford any obstacle to the partnership of India in the
British Empire. We have recently been so sympathetic to
the national aspirations of Arabs, of Czecho-Slovaks, of
Serbs, of Croats, and of Slovenes. Here is a country
desirous of achieving nationality once again, I repeat, an
original member of the League of Nations, developed
under our protecting care, imbued to a greater and
greater degree with our political thought. Let us pass
this Bill and start it, under the ages of the British flag,
on the road which we ourselves have travelled, despite
all the acknowledged difficulties of area, of caste, of
religion, of race and of education. If you do that, if you
pass this Bill and modify it until it becomes a great
Statute, I can say—we can say—as I should like to say
with the authority of the House to the peoples of India,
‘The future and the date upon which you realise the
future goal of self-government are with you. You are
being
given
great
responsibility
to-day,
and
opportunities of consultation and influence on other
matters in which for the present we keep responsibility.
You will find in Parliament every desire to help and to
complete the task which this Bill attempts, if you devote
yourselves to use with wisdom, with self-restraint, with
respect for minorities, the great opportunities with
which Parliament is entrusting you.’ That is the message
which it seems to me—I say with all deference—this
House should send to the Indian peoples to-day, when
you are starting to fulfil the pronouncement of the 20th
of August. That message cannot be sent unless the
House is determined to pass without delay, and with
every desire that it should be improved before it is
passed, a Statute which means the beginning of selfgovernment, responsible government, in the Indian
Empire [emphases added].
Why does Montagu refer to the League of Nations in the
context of the Government of India Act of 1919? What was
the reason for making Bharat a founding member of the
League? This takes us to the Paris Peace Conference of
1919–1920, which led to the founding of the League of
Nations and requires us to understand terms, such as
Standard
of
Civilisation,
‘civilised
nations’,
‘selfdetermination’ and ‘nation-state’. Readers may recollect
that earlier, in Chapter 4, I had discussed the role of the
Standard of Civilisation as a legal standard for the entry of
only civilised nations into the international society that laid
down international law. In this chapter, I will build on that
discussion and demonstrate how that standard was
specifically applied in the League of Nations in order to
globally advance the Christian colonial consciousness of the
West, especially in colonised countries including Bharat,
through the medium of national constitutions.
Importantly, the timeline shows a significant overlap
between (a) the Paris Peace Conference proceedings, and
the debates relating to that in the British Parliament and (b)
the preparation of the Montford Report for a constitutional
scheme for Bharat, and the passing of Government of India
Act of 1919. Therefore, the preparation of a constitutional
framework for Bharat in 1918–1919 must be viewed in the
larger context of framing and enforcing national
constitutions to universalise European coloniality and
Christian universalisms.
The Paris Peace Conference, Nation-States and
Civilised Nations
Much before Samuel Huntington spoke of the ‘Clash of
Civilisations’ in the 1990s,7 it had already taken place when
European colonisers sought to impose their Standard of
Civilisation on colonised societies, which defined the ingroup, namely civilised nations, and the out-group, namely
the ‘uncivilised’ or ‘not-civilised nations’. As discussed in
Chapter 4, the Standard of Civilisation has its roots in
Westphalian thought and became the basis for international
relations since it stood for a certain degree of commonality
between ‘nations’, such as their ‘common interests and
values, commonly binding rules, and common institutions’.
While between two European nations it was easier to apply
the standard given a shared Christian civilisational mooring,
between European nations and non-European societies, the
application of the standard was a function of the power
imbalance, which enabled the European to impose the
Christian Standard of Civilisation as a pre-requisite for the
establishment of bilateral relations. Whether motivated by
the transactional need for reciprocity or driven by
coloniality, the standard came to signify the civilising
attitudes of European nations. Implicit in this position is the
requirement of a ‘nation-state’, that is, only a group that
was a ‘nation’ could aspire to become a ‘nation-state, which,
as explained in the first section of this book, was a direct
consequence of the Westphalian model as well.
Therefore, calling a nation ‘civilised’ is a secularised way
of labelling it a ‘Christian nation’ or a Europeanised nation
that has organised itself on the lines of a nation-state. The
literature shows that for non-Christian non-European
countries, the path to being treated as a ‘civilised nation’
was obviously more arduous, and therefore they had to
effect a fundamental change in their systems to be
accepted into this elite European/Western club of nations.
The following are a few relevant excerpts from a seminal
work on the topic, ‘The Standard of “Civilisation” in
International Society’ by scholar Gerrit Gong,8 which
supports the position enumerated above:
Paralleling the expansion of the European international
system, the international society of European states—
those countries which had European civilization in
common—also began to extend its boundaries.
Interaction with non-Christian and non-European
countries underscored the international society’s need
for a universally acceptable identity. Thus, in extending
its domain, the international society which had earlier
identified itself with Christendom and then with Europe
came gradually to characterize itself as ‘civilized’.
According to the logic of a standard of ‘civilization’,
the nineteenth-century international lawyers (then
referred to as publicists) divided the countries of the
world into ‘civilized’, barbarous, and savage spheres ....
.… Indeed, some non-European countries had to learn
the hard way. Until they fulfilled the standard’s
requirements, these non-European countries remained
outside the law’s pale and protection.9
It is true that every nation or culture had its own definitions
of who was civilised and who was the savage; the
difference, however, was that Europe sought to universalise
its definitions whereas others used it primarily to provide or
restrict access to their societies and territories. That the
distinction struck by the Christian White European was
based on his obsession with race and ethnicity, especially
his superiority thereof—which he believed as an
anthropological fact—is evident from the historical
treatment of ‘inferior’ races. The view is summed up by
James Lorimer, a Scottish advocate, professor of public law
and an authority on international law in the nineteenth
century10:‘No modern contribution to science seems
destined to influence international politics and jurisprudence
to so great an extent as that which is known as ethnology,
or the science of races.’
It is no wonder that, as Gong points out, Lorimer divided
humanity into three zones or spheres—civilised humanity,
barbarous humanity and savage humanity. In the same vein
are the following views of the Chief of the colonial division of
the American delegation to the Paris Peace negotiations,
G.L. Beer11:
The negro race has hitherto shown no capacity for
progressive development except when under the
tutelage of other peoples. The ‘new science’ seemed to
substantiate his position. According to many scientists,
it is an established physiological fact that the cranial
structures of the negro close at an early age, which
condition, it has been contended, prevents organic
intellectual progress thereafter. Hence, many have
denied the capacity of the negro to advance far on the
path of civilization.
These views were not exceptions, but were the norm. With
time, Europe’s ideas of Christian civilisation were
secularised as ‘universal’ ideas of civilisation which were
sought to be shared with all, keeping with the Christian
injunction to spread the gospel. Here are a few extracts
from Gong’s work which support this observation and are
consistent with the discussion undertaken in the first section
of this book:
Another nineteenth-century trend which focused
attention on ‘civilization’ was the general secularization
of
European
society.
Owen
Chadwick
defines
12
secularization in the following terms : ‘the relation
(whatever that is, which can only be shown by historical
inquiry) in which modem European civilization and
society stands to the Christian elements of its past and
the continuing Christian elements of its present’. …
.… One element of the Christian tradition which the
trend toward secularization not only maintained but
intensified was the universality manifest in the biblical
injunction to take the good news to every nation.
Christianity’s universalist aspirations were easily
transformed into notions of a universal civilization which
could progress by adhering to scientific principles.
…. Because Europe thought itself the epitome both of
scientific law and of Christian principle, its standards
were self-consciously declared to represent universal
values. Barbarians might therefore acquire ‘civilization’.
Combined with the eighteenth-century belief that
human misery was to some degree preventable, the
idea that progress could be shared by all contributed to
the notion of the ‘civilizing’ mission where secular
reformers, even enlightened believers, could share the
missionary zeal and rally around the standard of
‘civilization’ to carry the light of ‘civilization’ to dark
places.13
These extracts from Gong’s work capture the sum and
substance of Christian European coloniality. Gong even cites
the life and views of Cecil Rhodes, the British diamond
magnate from South Africa who instituted the Rhodes
Scholarship, as an illustration of the movement from
Christian civilisation to secularised Christian civilisation. This
is corroborated by other scholars as well.14
Those in Bharat who aspire to the Rhodes Scholarship or
are beneficiaries of it and hold forth on ‘constitutional
morality’ and ‘transformative constitutionalism’ should
consider reading more of Rhodes’ views and those of other
like-minded individuals who saw national constitutions as
conduits to advance the cause of secularised Christian
civilisational values. That would be a good decolonial
beginning since it is well-known that scholarships, such as
Rhodes, were typically employed by the Christian European
coloniser to groom and co-opt natives into his worldview
and values. The objective was that such Westernised
natives would return to their countries of origin to ‘reform’
their fellow natives by instilling respect for ‘constitutional
morality’ and ‘civilisation’.
Coming back to the standard of civilisation, as Europe
reached the heights of its colonisation, an ‘international
society’ began to take shape. The system bestowed certain
benefits upon its Christian and European members, and
colonised societies too sought to reorient themselves in
order to be accepted as ‘civilised’ members of the
international society and enjoy the benefits of a Eurocentric
global order. Following were the broad legal requirements of
the Standard of Civilisation, as enumerated by Gong:
1. A ‘civilised’ State guarantees basic rights, that is, life,
dignity and property; freedom of travel, commerce and
religion, especially that of foreign nationals;
2. A ‘civilised’ State exists as an organised political
bureaucracy with some efficiency in running the state
machinery, and with some capacity to organise for selfdefence;
3. A ‘civilised’ State adheres to generally accepted
international law, including the laws of war; it also
maintains a domestic system of courts, codes and
published laws, which guarantee legal justice for all
within its jurisdiction, foreigners and native citizens
alike;
4. A ‘civilised’ State fulfils the obligations of the
international system by maintaining adequate and
permanent avenues for diplomatic interchange and
communication; and
5. A ‘civilised’ State, by and large, conforms to the
accepted norms and practices of the ‘civilised’
international society; for example, suttee (Sati),
polygamy and slavery were considered ‘uncivilised’, and
therefore unacceptable.
The reference to ‘suttee/Sati’ in the proscriptions under the
standard of civilisation is proof of the success of the
Christian Missionaries in Bharat in having internationalised
their stereotypes of Bharat. The fact that the abovementioned requirements were rooted in Christendom is
widely accepted by scholars of international law. It is also
evident from these requirements that they necessitated a
fundamental change in the political, legal, social and
economic infrastructure of non-European nations in order for
them to be accepted as civilised nations in the global order.
One of these changes was to have a constitution to prove
a nation’s civilised credentials as a nation of laws. For
instance, Gong points out that Japan adopted a
constitutional form of government with representative
institutions to impress the West and to convince it of its
eligibility for membership in the international order. In fact,
the Standard of Civilisation extended not just to the broad
institutional framework but also to specific legal principles
to be followed by national courts. This was evident from the
fact that principles of ‘natural justice’, ‘good conscience and
morality’, while appearing to be capable of accommodating
the subjective values of each society, in reality translated to
application of European values and ethics, or at the very
least, treating them as benchmarks to be measured against.
This practice continues to date in Bharat as Indian courts
continue to refer to and rely on English common law to distil
principles of natural justice, which are widely applied to a
range of legal issues.
This was a consequence of, among other things, using
international law as a means to treat the Standard of
Civilisation as a juridical/legal prerequisite for membership
in the international society. I have already demonstrated
this in Chapter 4 citing the use of ‘civilisation’ in Articles 9
and 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice,15
which was established under the Charter of United Nations.
The presence of the Standard of Civilisation, at least until
the founding of the United Nations in 1945, lends credence
to the position that it was equally prevalent at the time of
the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920, which led to the
founding of the League of Nations in 1920. The application
of the standard to the League of Nations is evident from
Article 22 of the League’s Covenant, which reads as
follows16:
ARTICLE 22.
To those colonies and territories which as a
consequence of the late war have ceased to be under
the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed
them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to
stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of
the modern world, there should be applied the principle
that the well-being and development of such peoples
form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for
the performance of this trust should be embodied in this
Covenant.
The best method of giving practical effect to this
principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be
entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their
resources, their experience or their geographical
position can best undertake this responsibility, and who
are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be
exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the
League.
The character of the mandate must differ according to
the stage of the development of the people, the
geographical situation of the territory, its economic
conditions and other similar circumstances.
Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish
Empire have reached a stage of development where
their existence as independent nations can be
provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of
administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory
until such time as they are able to stand alone. The
wishes of these communities must be a principal
consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.
Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are
at such a stage that the Mandatory must be responsible
for the administration of the territory under conditions
which will guarantee freedom of conscience and
religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order
and morals, the prohibition of abuses, such as the slave
trade, the arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and the
prevention of the establishment of fortifications or
military and naval bases and of military training of the
natives for other than police purposes and the defence
of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for
the trade and commerce of other Members of the
League.
There are territories, such as South-West Africa and
certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the
sparseness of their population, or their small size, or
their remoteness from the centres of civilisation, or their
geographical contiguity to the territory of the
Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best
administered under the laws of the Mandatory as
integral portions of its territory, subject to the
safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the
indigenous population.
In every case of mandate, the Mandatory shall render
to the Council an annual report in reference to the
territory committed to its charge.
The degree of authority, control, or administration to
be exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously
agreed upon by the Members of the League, be
explicitly defined in each case by the Council.
A permanent Commission shall be constituted to
receive and examine the annual reports of the
Mandatories and to advise the Council on all matters
relating to the observance of the mandates [emphases
added].
That the ‘sacred trust of civilisation’ required ‘advanced
nations’ to hand-hold and tutor former colonies (which were
referred to as ‘backward’ instead of ‘uncivilised’) so that
they could deal with ‘modernity’, a condition distinctly
created by the Christian European coloniser, represents
coloniality at its peak.
I will now place before the reader extracts from material
leading to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to show that
the reference to civilisation in Article 22 of the League’s
Covenant was not without significance or context. For
starters, although the United States of America chose not to
become a formal member of the League, here is an extract
from the Bible-inspired speech delivered by the 27th
President of the United States (1909–1913), Howard William
Taft, on 4 March 1919, on the need for the League17:
We are here tonight in sight of a League of Peace, of
what I have ever regarded as the ‘Promised Land.’ Such
a war as the last is a hideous blot on our Christian
civilization. The inconsistency is as foul as was slavery
under the Declaration of Independence. If Christian
nations cannot now be brought into a united effort to
suppress a recurrence it will be a shame to modern
society.
This covenant of Paris bears on its face the evidences
that it is the result of compromise; that it has been
produced by an earnest effort of the President and other
representatives of the nations who have won this war
and thereby have made themselves responsible for
future peace to adopt machinery through which the
peace now to be formulated may be maintained and the
united force of the nations making the treaty can be
directed to discouraging war.
…. Unless there be some means for authoritatively
interpreting the treaty and applying it, and unless the
power of the League be behind it to give effect to such
interpretation and application, the treaty instead of
producing peace will produce a state of continued war.
More than this, in the dark background is the
threatened spectre of Bolshevism, hard, cruel,
murderous, uncompromising and destructive of
Christian civilization, militant in pressing its hideous
doctrines upon other peoples and insidious in its
propaganda among the lowest element in every country.
Against the war, the chaos and the explosive dangers of
Bolshevism, throughout all the countries of Europe, a
League of Nations must be established to settle
controversies peaceably, and when settled to enforce
the settlement. It must stand as the living evidence of
the united power of Christian civilization to make this
treaty a real treaty of peace [emphases added].
Perhaps it could be argued that Taft was not the US
President during the Paris Peace Conference, and therefore,
his views did not reflect the official position. To meet such
an argument, here is an extract from ‘The Triumph of Ideals’
speech given by Woodrow Wilson, the then President of the
United States, on 7 May 1919, which indicates that he saw
the League as an opportunity to showcase the ‘civilised’
world as well as its Christian unity before ‘heathen
countries’ so that they look up to the Christian civilisation18:
…. The arrangements of the present peace cannot stand
a generation unless they are guaranteed by the united
forces of the civilized world. And if we do not guarantee
them cannot you see the picture? Your hearts have
instructed you where the burden of this war fell. It did
not fall upon the national treasuries, it did not fall upon
the instruments of administration, it did not fall upon
the resources of the nation. It fell upon the victims’
homes everywhere, where women were toiling in hope
that their men would come back.
I do not know when I have been more impressed than
by the conferences of the commission set up by the
conference of peace to draw up a covenant for the
League of Nations. The representatives of fourteen
nations sat around that board—not new men, not men
inexperienced in the affairs of their own countries, not
men inexperienced in the politics of the world—and the
inspiring influence of every meeting was the
concurrence of purpose on the part of all those men to
come to an agreement, and an effective working
agreement, with regard to this league of the civilized
world.
…. I remember not long ago attending a very
interesting meeting which was held in the interest of
combining Christian missionary effort throughout the
world. I mean eliminating the rivalry between churches
and agreeing that Christian missionaries should not
represent this, that, or the other church, but represent
the general Christian impulse and principle of the world.
I said I was thoroughly in sympathy with the principle,
but that I hoped, if it was adopted, the inhabitants of the
heathen countries would not come to look at us,
because we were not ourselves united, but divided; that
while we were asking them to unite, we ourselves did
not set the example. My moral from that recollection is
this: We, among other friends of liberty, are asking the
world to unite in the interest of brotherhood and mutual
service and the genuine advancement of individual and
corporate liberty throughout the world; therefore we
must set the example.
.… These men did not come across the sea merely to
defeat Germany and her associated powers in the war.
They came to defeat forever the things for which the
Central Powers stood, the sort of power they meant to
assert in the world, the arrogant, selfish domination
which they meant to establish; and they came,
moreover, to see to it that there should never be a war
like this again. It is for us, particularly for us who are
civilized, to use our proper weapons of counsel and
agreement, to see to it that there never is such a war
again. The nation that should now fling out of this
common concord of counsel would betray the human
race.
.… The nation that wishes to use the League of
Nations for its convenience, and not for the service of
the rest of the world, deliberately chooses to turn back
to those bad days of selfish contest when every nation
thought first and always of itself, and not of its
neighbors; thought of its rights and forgot its duties;
thought of its power and overlooked its responsibility.
Those bad days, I hope, are gone, and the great moral
power, backed, if need be, by the great physical power
of the civilized nations of the world, will now stand firm
for the maintenance of the fine partnership which we
have thus inaugurated [emphases added].
It is evident that the Standard of Civilisation was a concept
that was very much alive and kicking between 1917 and
1920, when it was expressly used by the League as a
criterion for membership to avail the right to selfdetermination as a ‘nation-state’. In other words, only a
group that qualified as a ‘nation’ could exercise its right to
self-determination and become a nation-state, provided it
met the standard of civilisation and was eligible for
treatment as a ‘civilised nation’. Those groups which were
not ‘civilised’ would be either protectorates or mandates.
Therefore, the Christian Western powers of the world
arrogated to themselves the power to determine who could
aspire for statehood and who could not, depending on the
Standard of Civilisation laid down by them. The Chinese
Empire, the Siamese Kingdom and the Japanese Empire, all
had to transition to being ‘nation-states’ in order for them to
be accepted by the international society. Clearly, this
transition was largely global owing to the universalisation of
the European politico-theological thought and institutions
through the medium of international law.
Naturally, Bharat was no exception to this rule. Pertinently
for Bharat, the build-up to the Paris Peace Conference and
the founding of the League not merely coincided but
overlapped with the preparation of the Montford Report on
Constitutional Reforms for Bharat in 1917–1918 and the
passing of the Government of India Act of 1919. The
Government of India Bill of 1919 was introduced in the
British House of Commons on 29 May 191919 and received
Royal Assent on 28 December 1919,20 while the Paris Peace
Conference, the Treaty of Versailles and the League of
Nations were being discussed in the British Parliament at
least between March 1918 and June 1920 as an
international platform to give effect to the civilising project
and to usher in Christian Peace.
It is precisely for this reason that the multiple references
to Bharat’s membership of the League of Nations in
Montagu’s submissions in the British Parliament during the
passing of the Government of India Act of 1919 are
particularly significant. The debates in the British Parliament
demonstrate that the Act, the first British-made Constitution
for Bharat, was imbued with the Standard of Civilisation that
was the not-so-unwritten civilising code amongst Christian
European colonising nations for non-Christian non-European
societies.
Here are a few excerpts from the debates that took place
in the British Parliament between March 1918 and June 1920
which reflect the Christian character of the League and its
use as a springboard for universalising the Christian
standard of civilisation. On 19 March 1918, the motion
approving the principle of the League of Nations was moved
in the British House of Lords by Lord Parmoor as follows21:
That this House approves the principle of a League of
Nations and the constitution of a Tribunal, whose orders
shall be enforceable by an adequate sanction.
Introducing the motion, Lord Parmoor said the following
while liberally quoting Kant, who, as we saw earlier, was a
Christian White supremacist, to put it in contemporary
terms:
As far as I can gauge opinion, it comes to this—that we
have suffered and are suffering from what I may call
international anarchy, and that the time has come when
we should put a more settled order in place of the
existing international anarchy, founded on the restraint
which comes from the recognition of mutual obligation
as between one country and another. The principle, as I
should put it, is that ordinary restraint means freedom
as between nations when properly adjusted, as it is
recognised to be the only basis of true freedom as
between individuals in any particular country....
.… It was rejected in the time of Grotius, who was at
once the earliest and the greatest of our international
lawyers, and who insisted—and that is part of the form
of my Resolution today—that no League of Nations
could be effective unless it were enforceable by an
adequate sanction. But I will give one quotation from a
later thinker of great eminence, Kant. I give it, again, in
order to avoid any necessity for repetition. Speaking of
States in their relations to one another, Kant said
—‘There can be, according to reason, no other way of
advancing from the lawless conditions which war implies
than by States yielding up their savage lawless freedom,
just as individuals have done, and yielding to the
coercion of a public law.’ There is no reason why that
principle should not be made effective.... Kant goes on
to say that he ‘regarded the want of a common public
law amongst nations as barbarism, the negation of
civilisation, and the brutal degradation of humanity.’ I do
not think that those words are too strong; and if they
were not too strong in the time of Kant, certainly the
conditions of the present warfare have emphasised
every particular to which Kant called attention….
.... Now the difficulty which stands in the way of
accepting the principle which I ask your Lordships to
affirm must be fairly stated. I am not now dealing with
difficulties of detail, because that is no part of my
Resolution at the present time, but there is a difficulty in
principle which I think ought to be met and which I
desire to anticipate in case it should be raised as
against the principle of my Resolution. It is this. That
you cannot have any League of Nations without some
interference with the sovereign rights of individual
parties. Unless a League of Nations did, in some
respects at any rate, restrain the rights of individual
sovereignty it would be ineffective, and I do not deny
that there is a strong school of thought which would
object, and strongly object, to any interference with the
rights of individual sovereignty which particular nations
enjoy. That doctrine has been carried further in
Germany than in any other country. In fact, it has been
carried to the extent of a State worship. It has been
carried to the extent of saying that as regards
international relationship no morality, and no Christian
morality, ought to prevail at all, and that the reign of
force should be supreme. The result of a principle of that
kind is to justify any brutality which you may desire,
provided only it is to the advantage of the particular
State. … If you assume for a moment, as I am willing to
assume, that nations approach one another on the basis
that they ought not to be influenced in international
relationship by moral conditions of any kind, but only by
conditions of force, it appears to me you make in the
strongest way a case for some restraint and coercion to
which they shall be bound to submit in the cause of
order and humanity.
I may say one word further whilst I am referring to the
United States of America. They and we form the two
great Anglo-Saxon communities of the world. They and
we have carried the principle of the rule of law and the
supremacy of law further than any other country. They
and we have put our legal systems substantially on the
same basis—the old common law principles which
prevail in England—and what I hope is this, particularly
having regard to the work which is going on at this time
both in this country and in the United States, that it may
be to the glory of those two countries that by joint effort
they may bring to fruition a League of nations on the
best principle and on the soundest foundation...
[emphases added].
On 26 June 1918, in the House of Lords, the Bishop of
Oxford advocated for ‘profound conversion of nations’ using
the pacifying nature of democracy to do so22:
My Lords, I hope that as a clergyman, and as one quite
unversed in International Law, it will not be thought
inopportune if I intrude for a few minutes in your
Lordships discussion, because no one at all acquainted
with the principles of the Christian religion can doubt
the extraordinary affinity between those principles as
originally expressed and the aspirations and intentions
which under-lie the present scheme for a League of
Nations. It is from this point of view that I have taken a
great interest—indeed, what thinking man could fail to
take a great interest?—in these various proposals, and
have given them as much detailed study as I have been
able to give to the subject.
.… I hope that the concentration and efforts of all
branches of the Christian Church may cooperate
towards this end. Christianity embarked on the most
momentous scheme of being supernational and
proclaiming the idea of supernationalism. In the
strength of St. Paul’s argument, and the enthusiasm he
put into the proclamation of this idea, you see the force
of the opposition with which he was encountered. The
whole of the history of the Church has been a struggle
against the narrowness of a false nationalism. It is a
great mistake to suppose that the division and heresies
of the early years of the Christian Church were merely
about theological doctrines. They had behind them
national movements. In the same way, when the East
and the West separated, it was not nearly so much on a
matter of doctrine, or on an ecclesiastical question, as it
was a division between the political tendencies of the
East and the political tendencies of the West. Though
the Reformation was at the beginning a great religious
protest against scandals and abuses, yet the developed
nationalities, which had grown up and strengthened
themselves, seized hold of it, and the idea of the
Catholic Church was imperiled, overwhelmed, and lost.
So it has been ever since that time in England. We have
been content with the idea of a national religion. But
Christianity itself claims to constitute a tie between
nations which shall be closer than the ties of blood and
race. I believe there is an immense call for the Christian
Church, and to the divided parts of the Christian Church,
to realise what Christianity means, and to bring to bear
a united pressure upon all Christian peoples that they
should rise again to the height of the great idea. In this
matter, it seems to me, we can ignore our divisions and
act as one body, and I desire nothing more than that the
whole divided forces of the Christian Church should be
brought together, so that they may speak with a united
voice and the nations might feel what the Christian
religion really meant [emphasis added].
One must be grateful to the Bishop of Oxford for putting in
plain Christian terms what the leaders of the ‘civilised world’
went at lengths to put in the ‘secular’ language of the
standard of civilisation. Endorsing the motion for a League
of Nations and concurring with the views of the Bishops in
the House, following were the views of Earl Russell, wherein
he expressed that he saw the League of Nations as an
instrumentality of ushering in that elusive creature called
‘Christian Peace’ (Pax Christiana) in the world:
I am inclined to think that the feelings of patriotism, the
feelings of nationality, and the feelings of independence
of the various nations are hardly likely to reach such a
complete internationalisation of their relations under at
least a generation or two. I can hardly look forward to
that as a thing likely to happen tomorrow, but I think we
should all keep before us that real international view, in
which the nations of the world, keeping their
independence in all their domestic affairs, should be
prepared to sacrifice a portion of that independence for
the sake of the general world’s peace. That, I think, is
the ideal to which a League of Nations must ultimately
tend, and I think that in constructing an imperfect
approximation to that ideal, either now or hereafter, we
should not do anything to make the ultimate realisation
of that ideal impossible. I hope the House will not
consider that in saying this I am adumbrating that which
we cannot look for. I do not drink we can look for it soon,
but if that education to which the noble Earl referred is
conducted and continued for a considerable time, that
must be what we should look for as the ultimate device
which alone can make for permanent peace and would
unite the world in that Christian peace to which the right
rev. Prelate alluded, but which unfortunately has never
yet succeeded in uniting it. I wish to say nothing more
beyond expressing the pleasure which the acceptance
of the Motion, as amended, gives me [emphasis added].
Similarly, on 3 July 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles23
(which was signed on 28 June 1919 between the Allied and
Associated Powers and Germany) was taken up for
discussion in the House of Lords, following were the views of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who saw the League of
Nations as rooted in Christian Principle24:
The work of Lord Robert Cecil, as we have constantly
been told, has been of an invaluable kind, and those
who look in detail into all that has been said with regard
to the League of Nations will be able to say what
leadership they have found in what he has taught us on
that subject. The framers of that scheme have resolved
to put into the forefront of the new world plan what is
already not only a sanguine political plan for the future
but what has been from the first a well assured Christian
principle. It is for that reason that I believe we have a
right to expect a better result from the effort which is
now being made than any result that could have been
rightly expected from far-reaching and ambitious
treaties of another kind in the days gone by. The danger
lies, I suppose, in the possibility that the provisions of
the Treaty might here and there be so worked as to
endanger the very principle which underlies the League
of Nations. Against that peril we as a people, and not
our statesmen only, have all to be watchful. The
responsibility is shared by us all, for the peoples are now
enlisted. In the stimulating and robust words which were
written a few days ago by General Smuts—‘The League
is yet only a form. It still requires the quickening life
which can only come from the active interest and
vitalising contact of the peoples themselves.’ That is the
primary fact upon which all this discussion rests, and,
standing here in the position I occupy, I should be false
indeed to every principle I have ever held, or to the faith
for which I stand, if I doubted that that principle, put in
the very forefront of a Treaty like this, will and must
stand the strain. It lies at the root and basis of the creed
of every Christian man. It is that which differentiates
this effort, this pact of the peoples, from any that has
ever gone before, and it is that which, above all, justifies
us, as we peer forward into the future, in making it a
part not only of our hopes but, I do not scruple to say
here, of our prayers as well as of our thanksgivings,
offered in confident expectation of the fruit that is to
come. The origin of this is not human but divine. It
stands in fundamental truth. Magna est veritas et
proevalebit [emphases added].
On 21 July 1919, when the Treaty of Peace Bill was taken up
by the House of Commons for a second reading, Viscount
Bryce was sanguine about the application of Christian
principles to international relations through the League of
Nations in order to replace enmity with friendship25:
The League of Nations if it has any truth, or reality, or
force, rests on the belief that the community of the
world requires that a new spirit should prevail in
international relations—a spirit which seeks to substitute
friendship for enmity. Each of the European countries,
our own included, emerged from the sanguinary welter
of the Middle Ages by realising in its own domestic
affairs that order and peace and respect by each
individual for the rights and feelings of every other
individual were better for all than ferocious strife. All the
nations now have to do the same thing; they have to try
to apply, far as is possible, Christian principles to
international relations—to work for reconciliation, and to
make even the peoples that have been alienated feel
that they are members of one great community in peace
and good will. That will do more for the happiness of
each and of all than strife has given or ever will give to
even the strongest [emphasis added].
On 17 June 1920, the League’s functions and purpose were
discussed in the House of Lords. On the said date, Sir Henry
Craik drew attention to the obligation of the ‘higher races’
and drew Biblical support for it, effectively restating the
duty of the White Man to carry the burden of the rest in the
following words26:
Sir H. Craik—‘I yield to nobody in my enthusiasm as to
what the League might possibly accomplish. Meanwhile
we must be patient. I believe that the real value of the
League—and here some Honourable Members may
think that I am retrograde or reactionary—lies, not in all
its stipulations, its recommendations, its machinery, and
its councils, but lies in the hope that the Great Powers
will in their strength, and bearing a responsibility
corresponding to that greatness of strength, will rise to
the occasion and make themselves the real leaders of
right all the world over. I do believe that we in England,
the great Anglo-Saxon race, have an ideal, which we
have made real and practical, of un-selfishness in
politics, and that we should bear that flag high, but we
can only bear it high by virtue of our exercising our
strength and our power. I believe that if the great AngloSaxon races of Britain and America, with our friends and
Allies France, will rise to the height of their responsibility
and hold up to the world a higher ideal of unselfish
politics they will do more than all your schemes and all
your stipulations by the respect they would gain from
smaller nations. I would ask Honourable Members to
remember that great message from the Lord to Joshua:
‘Only be strong and very courageous; be strong and of
good heart.’ I believe it is that strength that will give us
what Tennyson saw with the poet’s eye: ‘When the war
drum throbs no longer, and the battle flag is furled’ ‘In
the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world,’
‘When the common sense of most shall keep a fretful
realm in awe,’ ‘And the kindly earth shall slumber
lapped in universal law.’ Yes, the kindly earth may
slumber, but it will be no slumbrous time for the Great
Powers for the two Anglo-Saxon races, combined with
our friends in France, if they are to ensure that peace
and that tranquillity which we all desire, and which we
hope this League of Nations will establish [emphasis
added].
Despite these categorical professions of the League
standing for Christian Peace and Christian Unity based on
Christian Principles, some may point out that the Vatican
was kept out of the League of Nations despite the papacy
wanting to be a member of the League. Therefore, they
could argue that the League was secular in character. But
this would be historically incorrect for multiple reasons.
First, the Vatican was kept out of the League primarily
because Italy resisted its entry fearing that the Vatican
would seek return of the territories lost to Italy in the Italian
wars of unification. Second, Pope Benedict XV’s attempts at
floating the Vatican’s own peace platform after the war,
although successful to a significant extent through its
‘Concordat diplomacy’, put him in direct competition with
the US President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts to lead the
peace efforts. As revealed by a letter from Eugenio Pacelli
(future Pope Pius XII), a prominent Vatican jurist of the time,
to the Secretary of State to Pope Benedict XV, Pietro
Gasparri, it was feared that Wilson’s ‘fourteen points’ peace
programme was the brainchild of the Freemasons who
opposed Catholicism and ‘supplied the United States with
one of the cornerstones of its government, namely the
democratic spirit’.27 In fact, it was feared that Allied victory
would ‘Americanise the whole world, making it Freemason
so as to liberate it from its servitude to the kaiser, the pope,
and the priesthood’. The Vatican’s opposition to the US
programme ensured that the UK and France too allied with
the US. The third reason for the Vatican’s exclusion from the
League is that some of the obligations cast on the members
of the League were forbidden by Vatican’s religious beliefs.
Therefore, the absence of the Vatican in the League of
Nations is not proof of the latter’s secular credentials. If
anything, it only reinforced Protestant Christian political
theology, evident from the all-round affirmation of the
Christian nature of the League by world leaders of the time,
such as Woodrow Wilson, a devout Christian, and by
members of the British Parliament. Again, the fact that the
US ultimately opted to stay out of the League does not in
any way take away from the Christian character of the
League and its standard of civilisation since the US’s
decision was the consequence of isolationists in the US
Congress who wanted the US to stay out of European affairs.
From this, it is clear that the League was not ‘secular’, it was
‘Christian secular’.
Circling back to Bharat, it is in this well-documented
historical backdrop that the reference to Bharat’s
membership to the League by Montagu in his submissions in
the British Parliament during the debates on the
Government of India Bill 1919 must be understood, since it
highlights the Christian underpinnings of the Government of
India Act, 1919. But then, how did the ‘nationalists’ in
Bharat respond to the application of the standard of
civilisation to secure self-governing status? Did they oppose
it for being unsecular and racist in its outlook? Did they
challenge the imposition of Christian political theology and
Christian values on Bharat? Did they accept the definition of
‘nation’ in its entirety to Bharat? Lala Lajpat Rai, who then
headed the Indian Home Rule Movement in America,
published a pamphlet titled ‘Self-Determination for India’28 in
1919 wherein he made out a case for Bharat as a ‘nation’.
To his credit, he distinguished it from the European
definition. Here are some relevant extracts from his
educative pamphlet:
We believe the principle of Self-Determination alone can
solve the great problem of peace, and we can claim the
application of this principle to the case of India, which
has contributed so much in men, money and materials
to the triumph of the Allied Arms. We do not advocate
dismemberment or severance. We desire partnership on
the footing of equality with the Overseas Dominions.
Under the British aegis, we demand an absolutely
unmolested opportunity of autonomous development for
India similar to that accorded to various nationalities
within the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires
under President Wilson’s ‘fourteen points’ assented to
by the British Government with the approval of the
people. Our claim is founded upon the ideals and rights
of Self-Determination, Nationalism, Freedom of Nations,
National dignity and self-respect. These immortal
principles have infused a new life into India during the
war, and the supreme object of this war, the peace of
the world, cannot be achieved unless full scope be given
to the principles of Self-Determination for gratifying the
internal aspirations of India, and ending the external
ambitions of foreign nations in relation to India. Without
it the world can never be made safe for Democracy.
…. Her [India’s] former fame as the mart and mint of
the world allured invaders by land from the days of
Alexander the Great. But the land invasion ended with
the Mohammedan Occupation. The capture of
Constantinople by the Ottomans in blockading the land
way of Europe to India stimulated the mariners of Spain
and Portugal to find a waterway. In the process
Columbus discovered America and Vasco De Gama went
to India. Then America and India both became
battlefields of European nations … England, no doubt
drove the Dutch and the French from India and
consolidated her power. But Russia and Germany in turn
planned the conquest of India.
Few will have the temerity to deny that the present
war [WWI] was partly caused by German designs on her.
According to The Times of January 23, 1918, the exKaiser is reported to have said: ‘We shall not merely
occupy India, but shall conquer it; and the vast
revenues that the British allow to be taken by the Indian
Princes, will, after our conquest, flow in a golden stream
into the Fatherland.’ The loyalty of India, and
particularly of the intelligentsia of India, frustrated the
German attempts to foment conspiracies. But clearly
these external ambitions and internal aspirations render
it absolutely imperative to settle Indian problems by
enunciating a ‘Monroe Doctrine’ for Asia and Africa, and
emancipating India from pupilage and democratizing the
Government of India so as to remove rivalries and
assure the world that India is governed by the sons of
India, for the benefit of India and for the common
welfare of all mankind [emphasis added].
After this, Shri Lajpat Rai quoted the Montagu Declaration of
20 August 1917, which he saw as a denial of Bharat’s right
to self-determination as a Dominion within the British
Empire. Shri Rai pointed out that after the founding of the
League, which treated the said right as one of its
cornerstones, the Montagu Declaration and its assumptions
could no longer hold water since Bharat too was entitled to
exercise its right to self-determination as a ‘nation’. Saying
so, he went on to make a case for Bharat as a ‘nation’,
which read as follows:
India, a Nation
It is argued that India is not a nation, but congeries of
nations, not a country but a continent. These epigrams
obscure the truth and delude the ignorant.
What do we mean by a nation? Do the English, the
French, the Poles severally constitute a nation? Then the
Bengalis, the Punjabis, the Rajputs and the Mahrattas do
also form a nation. The Bengalis inhabit the same region
with a distinct name. Ethnologically they are descended
from the same race. They have the same blood, the
same language, the same civilization, literature,
customs and traditions. These are the essential
elements that constitute nationality in the popular
sense. Castes do not divide a nation any more than
classes do in England. Creeds do not rend a nation in
two. If they did religious toleration would be impossible.
There is less antagonism between the creeds of India
than there is between the various sects of Christianity in
England. There are hundreds of such sects in England,
but there are five religions in the whole of India. Two of
these cover 95 per cent of the population. The
statement about Bengali group is equally true of all the
other groups in India. there are about 12 such groups.
Historically up to the advent of British rule each of them
formed a distinct State, more or less exclusively
governed by themselves. These distinct States were in
some measure disturbed by the artificial arrangements
of the Provinces by the British Government.
Nevertheless the spirit of nationalism pervades every
one of them, and manifests itself when violently
attacked or assailed, as it did when Lord Curzon
partitioned Bengal. Historically, each of these groups
form a nation in the same sense as the English, the
French, the Belgians and the Poles do. They are
therefore entitled to Self-Determination, and upon that
principle also to federate to form the United States of
India.
We have so far confined ourselves to the definition of
nation in the popular sense of the word in dealing with
the aforesaid groups. But as a matter of fact, in the
broad sense of the word, the whole of India is one
nation. India is said to be the epitome of the world; but
there is unity in diversity. ‘India encircled by seas and
mountains, is indisputably a geographical unit’ (V.A.
Smith, Early History of India). ‘There is no part of the
world better marked out by nature as a region by itself
than India exclusive of Burmah’ (Chisholm: Geography).
Ethnologically they belong to the same Aryan race,
except in some parts of India, but even there they have
been assimilated. The whole of India was Hinduized long
before Alexander invaded India in 315 B.C. The Hindu
religion absorbed into its fold all the non-Aryan races,
with the result that Hindu culture became the
predominant culture of India. this culture was based
upon the ancient traditions, impulses and sentiments
preserved and sung in the great Epic of India, the
Mahabharata, which is translated in most of the modern
vernaculars.
Sanskrit was once the lingua franca of India. It was
language of the learned, as Latin was in Europe in the
Middle Ages. ‘India, though it has more than 500
dialects, has only one sacred language, only one sacred
literature, accepted and revered by all adherents of
Hinduism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank
and creed. That language and literature is Sanskrit, the
most ancient language in the world’ (Monier Williams).
Three-fourths of the population speak dialects derived
from Sanskrit, as French, Spanish and Portuguese are
derived from Latin. Though there are many dialects,
there are only about twelve which cover the whole of
India.
Politically, the whole of India is now practically united,
and had been so also in the past, notably in the days of
Asoka. But the ancient Emperors of India, more liberal
than the modern Tzars or Kaisers, never used force to
standardize language, culture, creed or caste, but left
each group to self-development suitable to its
environments.
India, therefore, possesses all the elements of
nationality—viz., same blood, same culture, same
traditions and same faith.
This Hindu nationality was to a certain extent
disturbed by the Mohammedan invasion and Moghul
rule, but the overwhelming majority of Moslems are the
descendants
of
Hindus
who
embraced
Mohammedanism, and as such they have retained the
language and customs of their respective regions, and
are still influenced by the immemorial Hindu culture
except in religious matters. ‘Century after century our
departed ancestors have fashioned our ideas and
sentiments’ (Le Bon). The change of faith cannot
obliterate the work of centuries. ‘Beneath the manifold
diversities of physical and social type, language, and
customs and religion, which strike the observer in India,
there can still be discerned a certain underlying
uniformity of life from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin’
(Sir Herbert Risley).
The civilization of India ‘has many features which
differentiate from that of all other regions of the world,
while they are common to the whole country in a degree
sufficient to justify its treatment as a unit in the history
of human social and intellectual development’ (V.A.
Smith, Early History of India). So intense is the feeling of
unity throughout India that any attempt to divide the
country into independent States would provoke
indignant remonstrances. In fact, so deep is this feeling
that even a proposal to create racial Provinces is
regarded by some Indians as a malicious manoeuvre at
disruption.
The allegation that India is not a nation is therefore
untenable and unjustifiable. In political science, ‘A
nation is no longer what it had been in the ancient
world, a progeny of common ancestors, or the aboriginal
product of the a particular religion, a result of merely
physical and material causes, but a moral and political
being; not the creation of geographical or physiological
unity, but developed in the course of history by the
action of the State. It is derived from the State and not
supreme over it. A State may, in the course of time,
produce a nationality, but that a nationality should
constitute a State is contrary to the nature of modern
civilization’ (Lord Acton). Such a nationality is
constituted when the people are animated by
sympathies which make them co-operate with one
another more willingly than with other people and desire
to be under the same Government. Such a desire for cooperation exists throughout India and has been
accelerated and accentuated by British domination.
Indeed, according to Sir Henry Maine, ‘the idea of
Nationality was first derived from India, and it travelled
westwards’. It is this feeling that makes federal union
feasible. In this respect the Bengalis, the Mahrattas the
Madrasees, the Sikhs and other groups in India are more
anxious to federate than the nations under the Dual
Monarchy, or the defunct Russian Empire, or even the
Irish and the English, or any other European nations.
The Concordat between the Hindus and Mohammedans
at Lucknow in 1916 illustrates the facility with which the
Indians left to themselves settle differences.
But to require races of India to coalesce into a nation
with one religion and one tongue, is midsummer
madness. It would revive the medieval idea of one
Empire, one people and one church, which engendered
the despotisms of the blackest dye. The world is now
happily rid of such tyranny. America has presented to
the world the principle of federalism, the last of the
political principles, but the richest in promise of peace
and freedom. According to Lord Acton, it renders
possible and practicable ‘the highest degree of
organisation, which Government is capable of receiving,
with the fullest security for the preservation of local
customs and ancient rights, where liberty would achieve
its most glorious results, while centralization and
absolutism would be destruction.’ There is no
(foundation) whatever for the assumption that India is
not capable of such organization. On the contrary, the
conditions and capacity, postulated by Lord Acton, exist
in a remarkable degree in India. if such federal
organization has not hitherto been evolved in India it
must be attributed to the neglect and the freezing and
sterilizing influences of the Indian Bureaucracy with its
excessive centralization, resulting from its rigid methods
and notions of trusteeship.
.… It is manifest that England cannot be a fit trustee
for India, for a trustee, unlike an executor, enforces his
own will as to what is good for the ward. The result is
deplorable. India lags far behind Germany or Japan. In
150 years of British rule the progress in India is less
than the progress in Germany or Japan in 50 years.
Indians have as much intelligence and capacity as the
Germans or the Japanese. The rapid strides of Germany
in commerce and industry have made her one of the
greatest workshops in the world. India, with her
unrivalled resources is still in industrial swaddling
clothes.
A century ago the percentage of literates in India was
about the same as in England. Today 95 per cent can
read and write in England, while in India scarcely 6 per
cent can do so. It is unnecessary for us to specify other
grave defects. …. India is not an infant nation, not a
primitive people, but the eldest brother in the family of
man, noted for her philosophy and for being the home
of religions that console half of mankind.
This is no place to discuss the details, but we resent
the implied slur on the patriotism, intelligence and
capacity of the people of India. The people of India are
admittedly as shrewd, law-abiding and intelligent as the
people of Europe. The venerable civilisation of India has
moulded their character and made them fit for
citizenship in any civilised State. The only argument
against their capacity is that a large majority of them
cannot read and write. But this is no fault of theirs. It is
a grievance against the Bureaucracy. It was their duty to
teach them to read and write during the past 150 years
of their rule….
.… We are told that the British took six hundred years
to reach the present form of government. But the
Athens did it in generation and France in six months. …
Left to themselves there can be no doubt that Indians
are capable of solving their Domestic Problems on
democratic principles within a short time. It must not be
easily assumed that Orientals are wedded to autocracy.
The truth is that democracy is older than autocracy in
India. Our ancestors were fully accustomed to
democratic institutions. The great Epic of India not only
mentions, but describes Indian democracies, and the
Buddhist literature fully testifies to their existence in
those early days. The Greeks found village republics in
full force. For over 2,000 years, five hundred thousand
(500,000) village republics, composed of all castes in
the village, flourished in India from Megasthenes to
Munro, till exterminated by Anglo-Indian centralisation.
The vigorous Caste Panchayat of today contains the
germs of republicanism. No people in the world have
had a wider or longer experience in working popular
institutions. It is therefore absurd to presume that
Indians are incapable of working democratic institutions.
Absolute freedom for autonomous development would
enable India to advance as Japan did, by leaps and
bounds, thereby becoming a source of strength to Great
Britain and a valued contributor to the civilization of
mankind. India is anxious to restore her pristine glory. Of
this there is no doubt. Liberty will infuse a new soul into
her. It is therefore hoped that the high-minded
statesmanship of England will rise to the occasion and
support this demand of India at the Congress of Peace
and give her the longed-for opportunity of working, on
her own lines, democratic institutions, and thereby
becoming a source of strength to the British
Commonwealth....
.… Upon the principles we have discussed we claim
that the British Parliament should enact a complete
Constitution for India conceding autonomy within the
British Commonwealth, with transitory provisions for
bringing the whole constitution into full operation within
the time specified by the Congress and the Moslem
League.
The autonomy we advocate may be briefly sketched
as follows: The Peninsula of India should be divided into
a number of provinces on the principle of nationality.
The Province should administer the internal affairs of the
Province and be entrusted with all powers requisite for
the administration. The form of government should be
democratic. These Provinces should be federated to
form the United States of India, with democratic Central
Executive and Legislative bodies having powers to deal
with the internal affairs of the whole of India. The United
States of India should form a unit of the British
Commonwealth with equal status with any other
constituent thereof... [emphases added].
The purpose of placing Rai’s pamphlet before the readers in
the context of the discussion at hand was to show that in
1919, that is, after close to 84 years of introduction of
Macaulay’s education policy, the awareness of Bharat’s
civilisational character and history was still alive, which
brings Rai’s position closer to that of historians of his time,
such as Radhakumud Mookerji, and others. Importantly, Rai
drew attention to the existence of democratic and
republican institutions in Bharat much before the arrival of
both the Middle Eastern and European colonisers. As one of
the leading lights of the Home Rule Movement, Rai’s
distinction between Bharat as a civilisation and Europe’s
construct of a nation indicates that at least until 1919, those
who fought for this country’s decolonisation, even if gradual,
were aware of its roots and had not been fully colonialised.
While this may point to the inherent strength of the Indic
civilisation, colonial education and its version of Bharat’s
history had started showing results, evident from the
references to the ‘Aryan race’ and ‘caste’ in Rai’s pamphlet.
Therefore, a certain degree of duality had begun to surface
in Bharat’s indigenous consciousness, at least by 1919.
In any case, despite such representations for selfgovernment, albeit within the British Empire, the
Government of India Act of 1919 was enacted, which was
based on the idea of ‘responsible government’, evident from
its Preamble that read as follows:
Whereas it is the declared policy of Parliament to
provide for the increasing, association of Indians in
every branch of Indian administration, and for the
gradual development of self-governing institutions, with
a view to the progressive realization of responsible
government in British India as an integral part of the
empire:
And whereas progress in giving effect to this policy
can only be achieved by successive stages, and it is
expedient that substantial steps in this direction should
now be taken:
And whereas the time and manner of each advance
can be determined only by Parliament, upon whom
responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of
the Indian peoples:
And whereas the action of Parliament in such matters
must be guided by the co-operation received from those
on whom new opportunities of service will be conferred,
and by the extent to which it is found that confidence
can be reposed in their sense of responsibility:
And whereas concurrently with the gradual
development of self-governing institutions in the
Provinces of India it is expedient to give to those
Provinces in provincial matters the largest measure of
independence of the Government of India which is
compatible with the due discharge by the latter of its
own responsibilities:
Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this
present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of
the same, as follows….
Going by the material discussed in the previous as well as in
the current section, this much is clear: the Christian secular
character of the British colonial infrastructure in Bharat
remained consistently evangelical in its outlook both before
and after the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858. None of the
events between 1857 and 1919 had an impact on the British
policy of ‘Christian toleration’, which was simply a
euphemism for silent and gradual proselytisation without
the overt use of force by the State, but with its tacit support.
Effectively, their position remained the same from the
insertion of the Missionary Clauses in the 1813 Charter Act,
to the Montford Reforms, which led to the 1919 Government
of India Act. The literature also demonstrates that the
Government of India Act of 1919 was not merely the product
of a clamour for self-government within Bharat in lieu of its
services in the First World War; it was equally a product of
the internationalisation of standard of civilisation, and hence
Christian colonial consciousness, through the League of
Nations. It is clear that at least until 1919, the standard of
civilisation, which emanates from Christian European
coloniality, was in vogue and directly impacted Bharat’s
organisation as a political entity.
Conclusion
This concludes the scope of discussion outlined for this
book. The direct causal nexus, nay umbilical cord, between
the global history of European coloniality and Bharat’s tryst
with it, in particular in the realm of the Constitution until
1919–1920, has been reasonably fleshed out in order for the
readers to use this book as a starting point for their
individual enquiries into Bharat’s indigenous Indic
consciousness and its contemporary dual nature. The
fervent hope is that readers would, at the very least,
become aware of their own preconceived notions about
Bharat brought about by unconscious and conscious
coloniality before holding forth on the need for ‘reform’ or
the virtues of ‘secularism’, and instead revisit their biases
with respect to terms, such as ‘traditional’. ‘Reform’ in the
context of Bharat must be decolonial reform as opposed to a
colonialising one.
It is also hoped that Bharat’s institutions, whether
executive, legislative or judicial, too would wear decolonial
hats each time they preside over Indic traditions, faith
systems and institutions so that they are not tempted to
push Bharat further into the arms of coloniality in the name
of
constitutional
morality
and
transformative
constitutionalism. Hopefully, some day transformative
constitutionalism will acquire a decolonial hue in Bharat,
thereby strengthening indigeneity instead of shaming and
silencing it through the unending and secularised Protestant
project of ‘reform’.
In the next book of this trilogy, I will take this decolonial
discussion forward and cover Bharat’s constitutional journey
in the crucial period between 1920 and 1951. As part of this
analysis, I will also examine the new avatars of the standard
of civilisation, namely the standards of modernity and
human rights and their impact on Indic consciousness. The
end goal, of course, is to understand the degrees of
separation, if any, between the Constitution as it stood on
26 January 1950 and the Indic civilisational worldview, and
to examine whether the duality in Bharat’s native
consciousness, which already existed in 1919, was
reinforced or minimised, if not fully eliminated.
Pavamana Mantra;
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28)
Om, lead us from the unreal to the real;
Lead us from darkness to light;
Lead us from death to immortality;
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 Arun Shourie, The World of Fatwas: or, The Shariah in Action, New Delhi:
ASA Publications, 1995; Arun Shourie, Missionaries in India: Continuities,
Changes, Dilemmas, New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998.
2 As a law student, my first blog on the popular IP blawg, SpicyIP, had been
cited and extensively relied upon by a Division Bench of the Madras High
Court to vacate an interim injunction granted in a hotly contested patent
dispute.
See
https://www.livemint.com/Industry/YfBnnhqMJOQiR5zfBGc7IJ/Indian-courtuses-blog-reference-to-solve-TVSBajaj-patent-i.html
3 Tata Sons Limited v. Greenpeace International & Anr (2011) 178 DLT 705.
4 Shreya Singhal v. Union of India AIR 2015 SC 1523.
5
See
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/shreyasinghal-v-union-of-india/
6 Shri C.S. Vaidyanathan subsequently represented the Deity Shri Ram
Lalla in the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute before the Supreme Court.
7 Sh. Dayananda Saraswati Swamiji & Ors. v. The State of Tamil Nadu &
Ors. W.P. (C). No. 476/2012, which is currently pending before the Hon’ble
Supreme Court. In December 2019, another writ petition, W.P. (C). No.
1432/2019, was preferred on behalf of the guardians of the Sri Subramanya
Swami Temple in Tamil Nadu and the Indic Collective Trust, challenging
more provisions of the TNHRCE Act 1959 and the rules thereunder. The said
petition was tagged with Swami Dayananda Saraswati ji’s petition on 18
December 2019.
8 The founder of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.
9 Indian Young Lawyers Association and Ors. v. State of Kerala & Ors. W.P.
(C). No. 373 of 2006.
10 The Reference proceedings in the Sabarimala Temple case commenced
in February 2020, but had to be put on hold due to the COVID-19-induced
lockdown on 24 March 2020 during which period one member of the nineJudge Bench retired. As on date, the Reference Bench is yet to be reconstituted. I represent People for Dharma and two other parties in the
Reference proceedings.
11 Sri Marthanda Varma (D) Th. Lr. v. State Of Kerala 2020 SCC OnLine SC
569.
12 J. Sai Deepak, ‘Constitution is meant to preserve integrity of nation and
institutions; romanticising it is like confusing medium for message’, 2019.
See
https://www.firstpost.com/politics/constitution-is-meant-to-preserveintegrity-of-nation-and-institutions-romanticising-it-is-like-confusingmedium-for-message-6708421.html
13 J. Sai Deepak, ‘The Sovereign State Versus the Globalized Citizenship
Model’, 2019. See https://openthemagazine.com/essays/sovereign-stateversus-globalized-citizenship-model/
CHAPTER
1
COLONISATION,
COLONIALISM,
DECOLONIALITY: LANGUAGE MATTERS
COLONIALITY
AND
1 Shishir Tripathi, ‘A lawyer for Lord Ayyappa: Advocate Sai Deepak turns
heads in SC arguing for Sabarimala deity’s right to celibacy’, 2018. See
https://www.firstpost.com/india/a-lawyer-for-lord-ayyappa-advocate-saideepak-turns-heads-in-supreme-court-arguing-for-sabarimala-deitys-rightto-celibacy-4859291.html; ‘SC praises lawyer for spirited defence in
Sabarimala
case’,
Business
Standard,
26
July
2018.
See
https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/sc-praises-lawyer-forspirited-defence-in-sabarimala-case-118072601333_1.html; ‘SC praises
lawyer for spirited defence in Sabarimala case’, India Today , 26 July 2018.
See https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/sc-praises-lawyer-for-spiriteddefence-in-sabarimala-case-1297435-2018-07-26
2 Belonging to a ‘sampradaya’, which means either a tradition or a school
of philosophy or a religious denomination or a sect.
3 M. Siddiq (D) through LRS. v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors (2019) 19 SCC
440.
4 Sowmya Sivakumar, ‘Sabarimala: “Deity’s Will” Cannot Trump the
Constitution
on
Right
to
Equality’,
2018.
See
https://thewire.in/law/sabarimala-is-temple-entry-a-destination
5 Chennai International Centre, 10 September 2018, ‘“A Tug of War
between Constitution and Faith” : 7th Sept, 2018’ [Video]. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozxQu_sQbO8&t=2347s
6 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America’,
Nepantla: Views from South, 1:3 (2000), pp. 533–580.
7 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’, Cultural Studies,
21:2 (2007), pp. 168–178.
8 Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts,
Analytics, Praxis, Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2018.
9 W. Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
2005.
10 Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’.
11 See note 8.
12 Sylvia Wynter, ‘1492: A New World View’, in Race, Discourse, and the
Origin of the Americas: A New World View, edited by Vera L. Hyatt and Rex
Nettleford, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
13 Jeffrey Hart, ‘Feting the Lindbergh of the 15th Century’, San Francisco
Examiner, 1991.
14 Linda Hutcheon, ‘Circling the Downspout of Empire’, in The Post-Colonial
Studies Reader, edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin,
London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 130–135.
15 Madina Tlostanova, ‘The Postcolonial Condition, the Decolonial Option
and the Post-Socialist Intervention’, in Postcolonialism Cross-Examined:
Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the
Newcolonial Present, edited by M. Albrecht, Routledge, 2019, pp. 165–178.
16 Nelson Maldonado-Torres, ‘Race, Religion, and Ethics in the
Modern/Colonial World’, The Journal of Religious Ethics, 42:4 (December
2014), pp. 691–711.
CHAPTER 2 THE DISCOVERY OF COLONIALITY AND THE BIRTH OF
DECOLONIALITY
1 Walter Mignolo, ‘Coloniality Is Far from Over, and So Must Be
Decoloniality’, Afterall: A Journal of Art Context and Enquiry, 43 (2017), pp.
38–45.
2 Michael Baker, ‘Modernity/Coloniality and Eurocentric Education: Towards
a Post-Occidental Self-Understanding of the Present’, Policy Futures in
Education, 10:1 (2012).
3 Walter Mignolo, ‘On Pluriversality and Multipolar World Order:
Decoloniality after Decolonization; Dewesternisation after the Cold War’, in
Constructing the Pluriverse, edited by Bernd Reiter, Duke University Press,
2018.
4 Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures,
Decolonial Options, Duke University Press, 2011.
5 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America’,
Nepantla: Views from South, 1:3 (2000), pp. 533–580.
6 Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts,
Analytics, Praxis, Duke University Press, 2018.
7 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’, Cultural Studies,
21:2 (2007), pp. 168–178.
8 Enrique Dussel, Javier Krauel and Virgnia Tuma, ‘Europe, Modernity and
Eurocentrism’, Nepantla: Views from South, 1 (2000), pp. 465–478.
9 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘Colonial Difference, Geopolitics of Knowledge, and
Global Coloniality in the Modern/Colonial Capitalist World-System’, Review
(Fernand Braudel Center), Utopian Thinking, 25:3 (2002), pp. 203–224,
published by Research Foundation of State University of New York.
10 Walter Mignolo, ‘The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial
Difference’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101:1 (Winter 2002), pp. 57–96,
published by the Duke University Press.
11 Patricia Seed, ‘Early Modernity: The History of a Word’, CR: The New
Centennial Review, 2:1 (Spring 2002), published by Michigan State
University Press.
12 E. Dussel, ‘Eurocentrism and Modernity (Introduction to the Frankfurt
Lectures)’, in The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America by John
Beverley-José Oviedo, Duke University Press, 20:3, Durham, 1993, pp. 65–
76; 2a. ed. 1995, pp. 65–76.
13 An Yountae, ‘A Decolonial Theory of Religion: Race, Coloniality, and
Secularity in the Americas’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion,
88: 4 (December 2020), pp. 947–980.
14 Sylvia Wynter, ‘1492: A New World View’, in Race, Discourse, and the
Origin of the Americas: A New World View, edited by Vera L. Hyatt and Rex
Nettleford, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
15 Inter Caetera—Division of the undiscovered world between Spain and
Portugal,
Pope
Alexander
VI,
1493;
See
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/alex06/alex06inter.htm
16 Sylvia Wynter, ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom:
Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument’, CR:
The New Centennial Review, 3:3 (Fall 2003), pp. 257–337, published by
Michigan State University Press.
17 Walter Mignolo, ‘Racism as We Sense It Today’, PMLA, 123:5, Special
Topic: Comparative Racialization (October 2008), pp. 1737–1742.
18 Nelson Maldonado-Torres, ‘Race, Religion, and Ethics in the
Modern/Colonial World’, The Journal of Religious Ethics, 42: 4 (December
2014), pp. 691–711.
19 J.W. Martin, The Land Looks After Us: A History of Native American
Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
20 Nassima Dalal, ‘The Impact of Colonial Contact on the Cultural Heritage
of Native American Indian People’, Diffusion: The UCLan Journal of
Undergraduate Research, 4:2 (December 2011).
21 D.M. Grandbois and G.F. Sanders, ‘The Resilience of Native American
Elders’, Issues in Mental Health Nursing 30 (2009), pp. 569–580.
22 C. Palmiste, ‘Forcible Removals: The Case of Australian Aboriginal and
Native American Children’, Alternative 4 (2008), pp. 76–88.
23 D. Hightower-Langston, The Native American World, New Jersey: John
Wiley, 2003.
24 C.F. Taylor and W.C. Sturtevant, The Native Americans: The Indigenous
Peoples of North America, London: Salamander Books, 1996.
25 L. Spence, North American Indians Myths & Legends, London: Senate,
1994.
CHAPTER 3 COLONIALITY, INDIGENOUS FAITHS, NATURE AND KNOWLEDGE
1 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’, Cultural Studies,
21:2 (2007), pp. 168–178.
2 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America’,
International Sociology 15:2 (2000), pp. 215–232.
3 R. Erdoes and A. Ortiz, American Myths and Legends, New York:
Pantheon, 1984.
4 Clayton T. Russell, ‘Use of Native American Oral Tradition in
Environmental Education’, Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, &
Professional Papers, 7905, 1988.
5 Joseph Epes Brown, The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian, New
York: Crossroad, 1982.
6 Brown, Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian, p. 110.
7 N. Scott Momaday, ‘Native American Attitudes to the Environment’, in
Seeing with the Native Eve: Essays on Native American Religion, edited by
Walter H. Capps, New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
8 Richard K. Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven, Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1983.
9 A. Versluis, Native American Traditions, Dorset: Element Books, 1995.
10 B.B. Mukumuri, ‘Local Environmental Conservation Strategies: Karanga
Religion, Politics and Environmental Control’, Environment and History, 1
(1995), pp. 297–311.
11 Joseph Epes Brown, ed., The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the
Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1953, p. 15.
12 Lina Álvarez and Brendan Coolsaet, ‘Decolonizing Environmental Justice
Studies: A Latin American Perspective’, Capitalism Nature Socialism 31:2
(2018), pp. 50–69.
13 William Adams, ‘Nature and the Colonial Mind’, in Decolonizing Nature:
Strategies for Conservation in a Post-colonial Era, edited by William M.
Adams and Martin Mulligan, Earthscan Publications Ltd, 2003.
14 Val Plumwood, ‘Decolonizing Relationships with Nature’, in Decolonizing
Nature: Strategies for Conservation in a Post-Colonial Era, edited by William
M. Adams and Martin Mulligan, Earthscan Publications Ltd, 2003.
15 R. Drayton, Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain and the
‘Improvement’ of the World, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
16 William M. Adams and Martin Mulligan, Decolonizing Nature: Strategies
for Conservation in a Post-Colonial Era, edited by William M. Adams and
Martin Mulligan, Earthscan Publications Ltd, 2003.
17 R. Murphy, Rationality and Nature: A Sociological Inquiry into a
Changing Relationship, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994.
18 Murphy, Rationality and Nature, p. 12.
19 L.J. Zimmerman, American Indians: The First Nations: Native North
American Life, Myth and Art, London: Duncan Baird, 2003.
20 C. Palmiste, ‘Forcible Removals: The Case of Australian Aboriginal and
Native American Children’, Alternative 4 (2008), pp. 76–88.
21 W.T. Hagan, American Indians, 3rd edition, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993.
22 E.G. Anderson, ‘The Presence of Early Native Studies: A Response to
Stephanie Fitzgerald and Hilary E. Wyss’, Early American Literature 45
(2010), pp. 250–260.
23 J.W. Martin, The Land Looks After Us: A History of Native American
Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
24 Mark Malisa and Thelma Quardey Missedja, ‘Schooled for Servitude: The
Education of African Children in British Colonies, 1910–1990’, Genealogy
3:40 (2019). See https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3030040
25 Malisa and Missedja, ‘Schooled for Servitude’.
26 Walton Johnson, ‘Education: Keystone of Apartheid’, Anthropology &
Education Quarterly 13 (1982), pp. 214–237.
27 Abraham Leslie Behr and R.G. Macmillan, Education in South Africa,
Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik Ltd, 1966.
28 Ayi Kwei Armah, Why Are We So Blest? London: Heinemann, 1972.
29 Pam Christie, The Right to Learn: The Struggle for Education in South
Africa, Cape Town: Ravan Press, 1990.
30 James Collins, ‘Social Reproduction in Classrooms and Schools’, Annual
Review of Anthropology 38 (2009), pp. 33–48.
31 Pam Christie and C. Collins, ‘Bantu Education: Apartheid Ideology of
Labour Reproduction?’ Comparative Education 18 (1982), pp. 59–75.
32 Cynthia Kros, ‘W.W.M. Eiselen: Architect of Apartheid Education’, in The
History of Education under Apartheid 1948–94: The Doors of Learning and
Culture Shall Be Opened, edited by Peter Kallaway, Cape Town: Pearson,
2002.
33 A. Roberts, South African Native Affairs Commission, vol. 2, Cape Town:
Cape Times.
34 Chana Teeger, ‘Ruptures in the Rainbow Nation: How Desegregated
South African Schools Deal with Interpersonal and Structural Racism’,
Sociology of Education 88 (2015), pp. 226–243.
35 Michael Omolewa, ‘Educating the “Native”: A Study of the Education
Adaptation Strategy in British Colonial Africa, 1910–36’, The Journal of
African American History 91 (2006): 267–287.
36 Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson
Mandela, Boston: Back Bay, 1994.
37 Richard Corby, ‘Educating Africans for Inferiority under British Rule: Bo
School in Sierra Leone’, Comparative Education Review 34 (1990), pp. 314–
349.
38 Shoko Yamada, ‘Educational Borrowing as Negotiation: Re-examining
the Influence of the American Black Industrial Education Model on British
Colonial Education in Africa’, Comparative Education 44 (2008), pp. 21–37.
39 D.M. Grandbois and G.F. Sanders, ‘The Resilience of Native American
Elders’, Issues in Mental Health Nursing 30 (2009), pp. 569–580.
40 Ayi Kwei Armah, Osiris Rising, Popenguine: Per Ankh, 2008.
41 L.A. French, ‘Psychoactive Agents and Native American Spirituality: Past
and Present’, Contemporary Justice Review 11 (2008), pp. 155–163.
42 C. Rybak and A. Decker-Fitts, ‘Theory and Practice: Understanding
Native American Healing Practices’, Counselling Psychology Quarterly 22
(2009), pp. 333–342.
43 Grandbois and Sanders, ‘The Resilience of Native American Elders’, p.
570.
CHAPTER 4 ENTRENCHMENT OF COLONIALITY THROUGH EUROPEAN
POLITICAL STRUCTURES
1 Patrick Ziltener, ‘Impacts of Colonialism—A Research Survey’, Journal of
World-Systems Research, 19:2 (2013), pp. 290–311.
2 Robin M. Grier, ‘Colonial Legacies and Economic Growth’, Public Choice,
98 (1999), pp. 317–335.
3 Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective,
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
4 Valerie Phillips, ‘Indigenous Peoples and the Role of the Nation-State’,
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law),
Vol. 101 (MARCH 28–31, 2007), pp. 319–323.
5 Jakob De Roover, Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2015.
6 Derek Croxton, ‘The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the Origins of
Sovereignty’, The International History Review, 21:3 (September 1999), pp.
569–591.
7 Gerhart B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought
and Action in the Age of the Fathers, New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
8 Karl F. Morrison, Understanding Conversion, Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 1992.
9 Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1989.
10 Hugh of Saint-Victor and R. Berndt, De Sacramentis Christinae Fidei,
Monasterii Westfalorum, Germany, 2008.
11 Steven D. Smith, Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional
Principle of Religious Freedom, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,
1995; Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, ‘The Profanity of Law’, in Law and the
Sacred, edited by Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas and Martha Merrill
Umphrey, Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 29; Nomi Maya Stolzenberg,
‘Theses on Secularism’, 47 San Diego Law Review, 1041 (2010).
12 De Roover, Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, p. 94.
13 Nomi M. Stolzenberg, ‘Political Theology with a Difference’, 4 U.C. Irvine
Law Review, 407 (2014).
14 James M. Estes, ed., Whether Secular Government Has the Right to
Wield the Sword in Matters of Faith: A Controversy in Nürnberg in 1530
over Freedom of Worship and the Authority of Secular Government in
Spiritual Matters, Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies,
1994.
15 Lewis W. Spitz, ‘Particularism and Peace Augsburg: 1555’, Church
History, 25:2 (1956), pp. 110–126.
16 Leo Gross, ‘The Peace of Westphalia, 1648–1948’, American Journal of
International Law, 42:1 (January 1948).
17 Daniel Philpott, ‘Religious Freedom and the Undoing of the Westphalian
State’, Michigan Journal of International Law, 25:4 (2004), pp. 981–998.
18 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, 26
December
1923.
See
https://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/
library/treaties/01/1-02/rights-duties-states.xml
19 Ove Bring, ‘The Westphalian Peace Tradition in International Law: From
Jus ad Bellum to Jus contra Bellum’, International Law Studies, 75 (2000).
20 Jason Farr, ‘Point: The Westphalia Legacy and the Modern Nation-State’,
International Social Science Review, 80:3/4 (2005), pp. 156–159.
21 Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 9 & 38(1), 26 June
1945. See https://www.icj-cij.org/en/statute
22 David P. Fidler, ‘The Return of the Standard of Civilization’, Chicago
Journal of International Law, 2:1 (2001), pp. 137–157.
23 Georg Schwarzenberger, ‘The Standard of Civilisation in International
Law’, Current Legal Problems, 8:1 (1955), pp. 212–234.
24 G.W. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, Oxford
University Press, 1984.
25 Daniel Philpot, ‘The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations’,
World Politics, 52:2 (January 2000), p. 213.
26 G.J.S. Dei and J. Anamuah-Mensah, ‘The Coloniality of Development’, in
Indigenist African Development and Related Issues: Anti-colonial
Educational Perspectives for Transformative Change, edited by A. AsabereAmeyaw, J. Anamuah-Mensah, G.J.S. Dei and K. Raheem, Rotterdam: Sense
Publishers, 2014. See https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-659-2_3
27 Jakob De Roover and S.N. Balagangadhara, ‘John Locke, Christian
Liberty, and the Predicament of Liberal Toleration’, Political Theory, 36:4
(2008), pp. 523–549.
28 Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of John
Locke’s Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
29 Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 242–243.
30 Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century
Philosophers, 2nd ed., Yale University Press, 2003.
31 S.J. Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity,
Manchester University Press, 2004.
32 Elizabeth S. Hurd, ‘The Political Authority of Secularism in International
Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 10:2 (2004), pp.
235–262.
33 Pauline Kleingeld, ‘Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race’, Philosophical
Quarterly, 229 (2007), pp. 573–592.
34 P. Frierson and P. Guyer, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful
and Sublime and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press, 2011.
35 Pauline Kleingeld, ‘Kant’s Second Thoughts on Colonialism’, in Kant and
Colonialism: Historical and Critical Perspectives, edited by Katrin Flikschuh
and Lea Ypi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 43–67.
36 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘Developmentalism, Modernity, and Dependency
Theory in Latin America’, Nepantla: Views from South, 1:2 (2000), pp. 347–
374.
37 Britta Saal, ‘How to Leave Modernity Behind: The Relationship between
Colonialism and Enlightenment, and the Possibility of Altermodern
Decoloniality’, Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture, 17 (2013), DOI:
10.13185/BU2013.17103.
38 Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Delinking’, Cultural Studies, 21:2–3 (2007), pp. 449–
514.
39 Christine Schwöbel-Patel, ‘(Global) Constitutionalism and the Geopolitics
of Knowledge’, in The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law,
edited by Philipp Dann, Michael Riegner and Maxim Bönnemann, Oxford
Comparative Constitutionalism, Oxford University Press, UK, 2020.
40 Pieter Heydenrych, ‘Constitutionalism and Coloniality: A Case of
Colonialism Continued or the Best of Both Worlds?’, New Contree, 75
(2016), pp. 116–134.
41 D. Hightower-Langston, The Native American World, New Jersey: John
Wiley, 2003.
CHAPTER
5
RELATIONALITY
DECOLONIALITY,
INDIGENEITY,
SUBJECTIVITY
AND
1 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Marxism and
the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence
Grossberg, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988; W.D. Mignolo,
‘Coloniality of Power and Subalternity’, in The Latin American Subaltern
Studies Reader, edited by I. Rodríguez, Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2001; Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘The Epistemic Decolonial Turn’, Cultural Studies,
21:2–3 (2007), pp. 211–223.
2 Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of
Coloniality and the Grammar of De-coloniality’, Cultural Studies, 21:2
(2007), pp. 449–514, 469.
3 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘Decolonising Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of
Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global
Coloniality’, Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the
Luso-Hispanic World, 1:1 (2011).
4 José Domingues, ‘Global Modernisation, “Coloniality” and a Critical
Sociology for Contemporary Latin America’, Theory Culture & Society, 26
(2009), pp. 112–133. DOI: 10.1177/0263276408099018.
5 W.D. Mignolo and M. Tlostanova, ‘The Logic of Coloniality and the Limits
of Postcoloniality’, in The Postcolonial and the Global, edited by R.
Krishnaswamy and Hawley, pp. 109–123, Minneapolis and London:
University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
6 M. Tlostanova, ‘The Postcolonial Condition, the Decolonial Option and the
Postsocialist
Intervention’,
in
Postcolonialism
Cross-Examined:
Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the
Neocolonial Present, edited by M. Albrecht, pp. 165–178, Routledge, 2019.
7 G. McLennan, ‘Sociology, Eurocentrism and Postcolonial Theory’,
European Journal of Social Theory, 6:1 (2003), pp. 69–86.
8 Gayatri Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, New York:
Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1988; Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture,
London: Routledge, 1994.
9 Gurminder K. Bhambra, ‘Postcolonial and Decolonial Dialogues’,
Postcolonial Studies, 17:2 (2014), pp. 115–121; Edward Said, Orientalism,
New York: Vintage Books, 1979.
10 Walter Mignolo, ‘Delinking, Decoloniality and Dewesternisation:
Interview with Walter Mignolo’, in Critical Legal Thinking, 2 May 2012. See
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2012/05/02/delinking-decolonialitydewesternisationinterview-with-walter-mignolo-part-ii/
11 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality of Power, Ethnocentrism, and Latin America’,
Nepantla, 1:3 (2000), pp. 533–580.
12 Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’, Cultural Studies,
21:2 (2007), pp. 168–178.
13 Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Essays on the
Coloniality of Power, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000.
14 Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Introduction: Coloniality of Power and De-colonial
Thinking’, Cultural Studies, 21:2–3 (2007), pp. 155–167.
15 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘Colonial Difference, Geopolitics of Knowledge and
Global Coloniality in the Modern/Colonial Capitalist World-System’, Review,
25:3 (2002), pp. 203–224; Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Spirit Out of Bounds Returns
to the East: The Closing of the Social Sciences and the Opening of
Independent Thoughts’, Current Sociology, 62 (2014), pp. 584–602. DOI:
10.1177/0011392114524513.
16 Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts,
Analytics, Praxis, Duke University Press, 2018.
17 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘Transmodernity, Border Thinking, and Global
Coloniality: Decolonising Political Economy and Postcolonial Studies’, 4 July
2008. See https://www.eurozine.com/transmodernity-border-thinking-andglobal-coloniality/
18 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘The Structure of Knowledge in Westernised
Universities:
Epistemic
Racism/Sexism
and
the
Four
Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century,’ Human Architecture:
Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11:1, Article 8 (2013).
19 Ramón Grosfoguel, ‘From Postcolonial Studies to Decolonial Studies:
Decolonising Postcolonial Studies: A Preface’, Review 29 (2006).
20 Ronald Niezen, The Origins of Indigenism, Human Rights and the Politics
of Identity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
21 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of
Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, London:
Cassell, 1999.
22 James S. Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
23 C107—Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (No. 107).
International
Labour
Organization.
See
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?
p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C107
24 C169 - Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169),
International
Labour
Organization.
See
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?
p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169
25 Jodi A. Byrd and Michael Rothberg, ‘Between Subalternity and
Indigeneity’, Interventions, 13:1 (2011), pp. 1–12.
26 Jose R. Martinez Cobo (Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities), ‘Study on the
Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations’, 1987. See
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/133666?ln=en
and
https://cendoc.docip.org/collect/cendocdo/index/assoc/HASH01a2/55590d0
2.dir/Martinez-Cobo-a-1.pdf
27 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(UNDRIP).
See
https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wpcontent/uploads/sites/19/2019/01/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf
28 State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, ST/ESA/328, Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues, United Nations, 2009.
29 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Washington, DC:
Howard University, 1972.
30 A. Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of
the Third World, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1995.
31 A. Escobar, ‘Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought,
Development and Social Movements’, Social Text, 31/32 (1992), pp. 20–56;
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance
Farrington, New York: Grove, 1968, p. 169.
32 Mario Blaser, Glenn McRae and Harvey Feit, In the Way of Development:
Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalisation, IDRC, 2004.
33 Mathias Guenther, Justin Kenrick, Adam Kuper, Evie Plaice, Trond Thuen,
Patrick Wolfe, Werner Zips and Alan Barnard, ‘The Concept of Indigeneity’,
Social Anthropology, 14 (2006). DOI: 10.1017/S0964028205001849.
34 Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Coloniality Is Far from Over, and So Must Be
Decoloniality’, Afterall, 43 (2017), pp. 38–45.
35 Paul Berne Burow, Samara Brock and Michael R. Dove, ‘Unsettling the
Land: Indigeneity, Ontology, and Hybridity in Settler Colonialism’,
Environment and Society, 9 (2018), pp. 57–74.
36 Sarah Radcliffe, ‘Geography and Indigeneity I: Indigeneity, Coloniality
and Knowledge’, Progress in Human Geography, 2015. DOI: 41.
10.1177/0309132515612952.
37 Adam Barker and Jenny Pickerill, ‘Doings with the Land and Sea:
Decolonising Geographies, Indigeneity, and Enacting Place-Agency’,
Progress in Human Geography, 44 (2019). DOI: 030913251983986.
10.1177/0309132519839863.
CHAPTER 6 BHARAT, COLONIALITY AND COLONIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
1 B. Rao, E. Bloch and J. De Roover, ‘Rethinking Colonialism and Colonial
Consciousness: The Case of Modern India’, in Forms of Knowledge in India:
Critical Revaluations, edited by S. Raval, G. Mehta and S. Yashaschandra,
pp. 179–212, New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008.
2 B. Rao and J. De Roover, ‘The Secular State and Religious Conflict: Liberal
Neutrality and the Indian Case of Pluralism’, Journal of Political Philosophy,
15:1 (2007), pp. 67–92.
3 Sitaram Goel, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India, New Delhi: Voice
of India, 1982.
4 R.K. Ohri, Long March of Islam: The Future Imperfect, New Delhi: Manas
Publications, 2004.
5 Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, New
Delhi: Voice of India, 1992.
6 Sitaram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Vols 1 and 2,
New Delhi: Voice of India, 1982.
7 Ram Swarup, Understanding Islam through Hadis—Religious Faith or
Fanaticism? New Delhi: Voice of India, 1982.
8 M.A. Khan, Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and
Slavery, New York: iUniverse, 2009.
9 Sitaram Goel, Muslim Separatism: Causes and Consequences, New Delhi:
Voice of India, 1983.
10 Kolja Lindner, ‘Marx’s Eurocentrism. Postcolonial Studies and Marx
Scholarship’, Radical Philosophy, 161 (2010), pp. 27-41; P. Jani, ‘Karl Marx,
Eurocentrism, and the 1857 Revolt in British India’, in Marxism, Modernity
and Postcolonial Studies, edited by C. Bartolovich and N. Lazarus (Cultural
Margins, pp. 81–98), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
11 J. Li, ‘The Asiatic Mode of Production and the Marxist Theory of History’,
in Chinese Civilization in the Making, 1766–221 bc, London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 1996.
12 T. Byres, ‘Eurocentric Marxism and the Third World: View from the
Academy in the Anglophone Metropolis’, Economic and Political Weekly,
19:30 (1984), pp. 1199–1204.
13 K. Mathew Kurian, ‘Marxism and Christianity’, Social Scientist, 2:8
(1974), pp. 3–21; H.F. Ward, ‘Christian Marxism’, in Trends in Protestant
Social Idealism, edited by J. Neal Hughley, Columbia University Press, 1948.
14 Manfred Sing, ‘The Tempestuous Affair between Marxism and Islam:
Attraction, Hostility, and Accommodation since 1917’, in Muslims and
Capitalism: An Uneasy Relationship? edited by Béatrice Hendrich, BadenBaden Ergon Verlag, 2018. DOI: 10.5771/9783956504648-49.
15 B. Rao, Reconceptualizing India Studies, New Delhi, India: Oxford
University Press, 2012.
16 Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind: Ideological Development of
Hindu Revivalism, New Delhi, India: Rupa & Co., 2001.
17 B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India, Mumbai, India: Thacker
and Co., 1946.
18 Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India.
19 Venkat Dhulipala, Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the
Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2015.
20 Christine C. Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
21 Sandeep Balakrishna, Invaders and Infidels, Book 1: From Sindh to
Delhi: The 500-Year Journey of Islamic Invasions , Bloomsbury India, 2020.
CHAPTER 7 BHARAT AS A CIVILISATION: UNITY IN DIVERSITY THROUGH THE
TRIPLE MATRIX OF NATURE, FAITH AND PATRIOTISM
1 Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western
World and the Birth of a New Global Order, Penguin UK, 2009.
2 Martin Jacques, ‘Civilization State versus Nation-State’, 2011. See
http://www.martinjacques.com/articles/civilization-state-versus-nation-
state-2/
3 Zhang Weiwei, The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State, World
Scientific Publishing Company, 2012.
4
Koenraad
Elst,
‘India
as
a
Civilization-State’,
2014.
See
http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2014/07/india-as-civilization-state.html
5 DNA, ‘India Is a Civilisational State, Not Based on Religion or Language:
NSA Doval’, 2020. See https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-india-is-acivilisational-state-not-based-on-religion-or-language-nsa-doval-2852191
6 Har Bilas Sarda, Hindu Superiority: An Attempt to Determine the Position
of the Hindu Race in the Scale of Nations, Rajputana Printing Works, 1906.
7 Radhakumud Mookerji, Hindu Civilization (from the Earliest Times up to
the Establishment of the Maurya Empire), London and New York:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1936; Radhakumud Mookerji, Hindu Civilization
(from the Earliest Times up to the Establishment of the Maurya Empire),
Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1950.
8 Radhakumud Mookerji, A New Approach to the Communal Problem,
Bombay: Padma Publications, 1943.
9 Radhakumud Mookerji, Akhand Bharat, Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1945.
10 Radhakumud Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India (from Hindu
Sources), London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1914.
11 Strachey quoted in Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India, p. 5.
12 Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India, p. 6.
13 Smith quoted in Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India, p. 14.
14 Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India, p. 19.
15 Mookerji, The Fundamental Unity of India, p. 37.
16 Radhakumud Mookerji, Nationalism in Hindu Culture, London:
Theosophical Publishing House, 1921.
17 Mookerji, Nationalism in Hindu Culture, p. 57.
18 Objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22
January
1947.
See
http://loksabhaph.nic.in/writereaddata/cadebatefiles/C22011947.pdf
19 The Draft Constitution prepared by the Drafting Committee under the
Chairmanship of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was based on the draft Constitution
prepared by the Constitutional Advisor to the Constituent Assembly, Sir
Benegal Narsing Rau.
20 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 15 November 1948. See
http://164.100.47.194/loksabha/writereaddata/cadebatefiles/C15111948.ht
ml
21 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 17 November 1948. See
http://164.100.47.194/loksabha/writereaddata/cadebatefiles/C17111948.ht
ml
22 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 17 September 1949. See
http://loksabhaph.nic.in/writereaddata/cadebatefiles/C17091949.html
23 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 18 September 1949. See
http://loksabhaph.nic.in/writereaddata/cadebatefiles/C18091949.html
24 Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, ‘“India, That Is Bharat….”: One Country, Two
Names’, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (2014). See
https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.3717
25 Jadunath Sarkar, India through the Ages, a Survey of the Growth of
Indian Life and Thought, Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar & Sons, 1928.
26 R.C. Majumdar, Kalikinkar Datta and Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri, An
Advanced History of India, Macmillan Publishers, 1946.
27 R.C. Majumdar, Ancient India, Banaras: Motilal Banarsidass, 1952.
28 Bruce McCully, The Origins of Indian Nationalism According to Native
Writers’, The Journal of Modern History 7 (1935): 295–314.
29 Nilakanta K.A. Sastri and G. Srinivasachari, Advanced History of India,
Bombay Allied Publishers, 1971.
30 S.K. Aiyangar, Ancient India and South Indian History and Culture Papers
on Indian History and Culture, Poona: Oriental Book Agency, 1941; R.C.
Dutt, A History of Civilisation in Ancient India (Based on Sanscrit
Literature), London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. Ltd., 1893.
31 Govind Chandra Pande, Foundations of Indian Culture, New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1990; K.P. Jayaswal and V.R. Sankrityayana, An
Imperial History of India in a Sanskrit Text, c. 700 b.c.–c. 770 a.d. with a
Special Commentary on Later Gupta Period, Lahore: Motilal Banarsidass,
1934.
32 Diana L. Eck, India: A Sacred Geography, New York: Harmony, Random
House, 2012.
CHAPTER 8 EUROPEAN COLONIALITY AND THE INDIC CIVILISATION
1 N.K. Sinha and A.C. Banerjee, History of India, Calcutta: A. Mukherjee &
Co. Private Ltd, 1947.
2 A.B. Keith, A Constitutional History of India, 1600–1935 (1st ed.), London:
Routledge, 1937.
3 Gurumukh Nihal Singh, Landmarks in Indian Constitutional and National
Development, (1600–1919), Benares: Indian Book Shop, 1933.
4 Narendra Nath Law, Promotion of Learning in India by Early European
Settlers (up to about 1800 a.d.), London, New York: Longmans, Green and
Co., 1915.
5 Syed Nurullah and J.P. Naik, A Students’ History of Education in India
(1800–1973), Delhi: S.G. Wasani for Macmillan Company of India, 1974.
6 M.B. Hooker, ‘The East India Company and the Crown 1773–1858’,
Malaya Law Review, 11:1 (July 1969), pp. 1–37.
7 East India Company, The Law Relating to India, and The East-India
Company; with Notes and an Appendix, London, W.H. Allen & Co., 1841.
8 East India Company v. Sandys (1683) 90 ER 62.
9 Richard Tuck, ‘Alliances with Infidels in the European Imperial Expansion,’
in Empire and Modern Political Thought edited by Sankar Muthu, 61–83,
Cambridge, 2012.
10 James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels: The Church and the NonChristian World, 1250–1550, Liverpool, 1979.
11 Edward Cavanagh, ‘Infidels in English Legal Thought: Conquest,
Commerce and Slavery in The Common Law from Coke to Mansfield, 1603–
1793’, Modern Intellectual History, 16 (2017), pp. 1–35.
12 Letter Patents granted to the Governor and the Company of Merchants
of London, Trading into the East-Indies; 5 September, 1698; IOR/A/1/56–57.
Printed in Charters Granted to the East India Company from 1601, etc.,
London, 1773.
13 S.C. Ilbert, The Government of India: A Brief Historical Survey of
Parliamentary Legislations Relating to India, Oxford University Press, 1922.
14 A Collection of Statutes Relating to India in Two Volumes, Calcutta:
Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1899.
15 The Journals of the House of Commons (from 26 November 1772 to 15
September 1774), 34 (1804). See https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?
id=chi.78147261&view=1up&seq=1
16 Jacob De Roover and S.N. Balagangadhara, ‘Liberty, Tyranny and the
Will of God: The Principle of Toleration in Early Modern Europe and Colonial
India’, History of Political Thought, 30:1 (Spring 2009), pp. 111–139.
17 John Shore, Baron Teignmouth, Considerations on the Practicability,
Policy, and Obligation of Communicating to the Natives of India the
Knowledge of Christianity, London, 1808.
18 Joshua Marshman, Advantages of Christianity in Promoting the
Establishment and Prosperity of the British Government in India, London,
1813; Andrew Fuller, An Apology for the Late Christian Missions to India,
London: J.W. Morris, 1808; John William Cunningham, Christianity in India:
An Essay on the Duty, Means and Consequences of Introducing the
Christian Religion among the Native Inhabitants of the British Dominions of
the East, London: J. Hatchard, 1808.
19 Roger H. Martin, ‘Anglicans and Baptists in Conflict: The Bible Society,
Bengal and the Baptizo Controversy’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History,
49 (1998), pp. 293–316.
20 William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use
Means for the Conversion of the Heathens in Which the Religious State of
the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings,
and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, Are Considered, Leicester:
Ann, Ireland, 1792; Mary Drewery, William Carey: A Biography, Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1979.
21 E. Daniel Potts, British Baptist Missionaries in India, 1793–1837,
Cambridge University Press, 1967, p. 54.
22 William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System
of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes, Contrasted with
Real Christianity, New York: American Tract Society, 1830, 1839 [1797].
23 House of Commons (26 June 1811), ‘Missionaries to the East’, H.C. Deb,
vol.
20,
cc.
758–759.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1811/jun/26/missionaries-to-the-east
24 Karen Chancey, ‘The Star in the East: The Controversy over Christian
Missions to India, 1805–1813’, The Historian, 60:3 (1998 Spring), pp. 507–
522.
25 L. Mani, Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India,
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998.
26 Bennie R. Crockett and Myron C. Noonkester, ‘The Chaplains’ Plot:
Charter Renewal in 1813 and the Reformation of British India’, paper
delivered at Southern Conference on British Studies, Memphis, Tennessee,
November, 2004. See https://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/lectures/chaplainsplot.pdf
27 House of Commons (22 February 1813), ‘Petition of the East India
Company for the Renewal of their Charter’, H.C. Deb, vol. 24, cc. 659–676.
See
https://
api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/
1813/feb/22/petition-of-the-east-india-company-for
28 Claudius Buchanan, ‘The Star in the East’: A Sermon Preached in the
Parish Church of St. James, Bristol, England, Sunday, February 26, 1809,
New York: Williams & Whiting, 1809, p. 29; Claudius Buchanan, Memoir of
the Expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India; both as
a Means of Perpetuating the Christian Religion among our own
Countrymen; and as a Foundation for the Ultimate Civilisation of the
Natives, Second Cambridge Edition, Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1811,
pp. 44–48; Claudius Buchanan, Christian Researches in Asia, New York,
1812; Claudius Buchanan, An Apology for Promoting Christianity in India,
Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1814.
29 Robert Hall, Considerations on a Most Important Subject Connected with
the Question of the Renewal of the Charter of the East India Company,
Glasgow: W. Turnbull and M. Ogle, 1813.
30 House of Commons (19 February 1813), ‘Petition Respecting the East
India Company, from the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian
Knowledge’,
H.C.
Deb,
vol.
24,
cc
654–655.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1813/feb/19/petitionrespecting-the-east-india
31 Andrea Major, Pious Flames: European Encounters with Sati 1500–1830,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.
32 Meenakshi Jain, Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the
Changing Colonial Discourse, New Delhi: Aryan Books International, 2016.
33 One of the leading families of Bengal which led the Bengali
Renaissance. Shri Rabindranath Tagore hailed from this family
34 Further Papers respecting East India Company’s Charter, 1833, General
Court for the Information of the Proprietors, London.
35 House of Commons (13 June 1833), ‘East India Company’s Charter’, H.C.
Deb, vol 18, cc. 698–785. See https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1833/jun/13/east-india-companys-charter
36 House of Lords (17 June 1833), ‘East India Charter’, H.L. Deb, vol. 18, cc.
851–852.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/lords/1833/jun/17/east-india-charter
37 House of Commons (10 July 1833), ‘East India Company’s Charter’, H.C.
Deb, vol. 19, cc. 479–550. See https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1833/jul/10/east-india-companys-charter
38 House of Commons (19 July 1833), ‘East India Company’s Charter’, H.C.
Deb, vol. 19, cc. 1031–1037. See https:// api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1833/jul/19/east-india-companys-charter-1
39 House of Commons (26 July 1833), ‘East India Company’s Charter’, H.C.
Deb, vol. 20, cc. 14–50. See https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1833/jul/26/east-india-companys-charter
40 House of Commons (2 April 1852), ‘The East India Company’s Charter’,
H.L. Deb, vol. 120, cc. 546–580. See https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/lords/1852/apr/02/the-east-india-companys-charter
41 House of Lords (19 April 1852), ‘East India Company’s Charter’, H.C.
Deb, vol. 120, cc. 806–868. See https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1852/apr/19/east-india-companys-charter
CHAPTER 9 CHRISTIAN COLONIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, THE HINDU RELIGION,
CASTE, TRIBE AND EDUCATION
1 Nicholas B. Dirks, Colonialism and Culture, The University of Michigan
Press, 1992; Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The Original Caste: Power, History and
Hierarchy in South Asia’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 23:1(1989), pp.
59–77; Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The Invention of Caste: Civil Society in Colonial
India’, Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural
Practice, 25 (1989), pp. 42–52; Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The Policing of Tradition:
Colonialism and Anthropology in Southern India’, Comparative Studies in
Society and History, 39:1 (1997), pp. 182–212; Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The
Conversion of Caste: Location, Translation, and Appropriation’, in
Conversion to Modernities edited by P van der Veer, New York: Routledge,
1996, pp. 115–137.
2 Jakob De Roover, Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, Oxford
University Press, 2016.
3 Peter van der Veer, 1953, Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of
Christianity [Conference on Conversion, Held at the Research Centre of
Religion and Society of the University of Amsterdam, June 1994], New York
[u.a.]: Routledge, 1996.
4 J. De Roover, ‘A Nation of Tribes and Priests: The Jews and the Immorality
of the Caste System’, in Western Foundations of the Caste System edited
by M. Fárek, D. Jalki, S. Pathan and P. Shah, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham,
2017.
5 Jakob De Roover and S.N. Balagangadhara, ‘Liberty, Tyranny and the Will
of God: The Principle of Toleration in Early Modern Europe and Colonial
India’, History of Political Thought, 30:1 (March 2009), pp. 111–139.
6 De Roover, Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, p. 180.
7 De Roover, Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, p. 187.
8 S.N. Balagangadhara and Jakob De Roover, ‘The Dark Hour of Secularism
Hindu Fundamentalism and Colonial Liberalism in India’, in Making Sense of
the Secular: Critical Perspectives from Europe to Asia edited by Ranjan
Ghosh, New York: Routledge, 2012.
9 The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri
Lakshmindra Tirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt, AIR 1954 SC 282.
10 Shastri Yagnapurushdasji and others v. Muldas Bhundardas vaishya and
another, AIR 1966 SC 1119.
11 Bramchari Sidheswar Bhai & ors. v. State of West Bengal, 1995 SCC (4)
646.
12 S.N. Balagangadhara and Jakob De Roover, ‘John Locke, Christian
Liberty and the Predicament of Liberal Toleration’, Political Theory, 36:4
(August 2008), pp. 523–549.
13 Nelson Maldonado-Torres, ‘Religion, Modernity, and Coloniality’, in
Religion, Theory, Critique edited by Richard King, New York Chichester,
West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2017, pp. 547–554.
14 Nelson Maldonado-Torres, ‘On the Coloniality of Being’, Cultural Studies,
21:2–3 (2007), pp 240–270.
15 Sarah Claerhout and Jakob De Roover, ‘Conversion of the World:
Proselytization in India and the Universalization of Christianity’, in Rights
Talk, Free Markets and Culture edited by Rosalind I.J. Hackett. London:
Equinox, 2008.
16 Jakob De Roover and Sarah Claerhout, ‘The Colonial Construction of
What?’, in Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of
Hinduism edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde,
vol. 4, London, UK; New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2010, pp. 164–183.
17 The credit for bringing out this nuance goes to Shri T.R. Ramesh, a
highly erudite champion of freedom of Hindu religious institutions from
State control.
18 Madhu Kishwar, ‘Codified Hindu Law: Myth and Reality’, Economic and
Political Weekly, 29 (1994), pp. 2145–2161.
19 Gloria Goodwin Raheja, ‘Caste, Colonialism, and the Speech of the
Colonized: Entextualization and Disciplinary Control in India’, American
Ethnologist, 23:3 (1996), pp. 494–513.
20 F.G. Bailey, ‘“Tribe” and “Caste” in India’, Contributions to Indian
Sociology, 5 (1961), pp. 7–19.
21 Nicholas B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern
India, Princeton University Press, 2002.
22 Herbert H. Risley, Manual of Ethnography for India: General Instructions,
Definitions, and Ethnographic Questions, Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat
Press, 1907.
23 Dirks, Castes of Mind, pp. 22, 24.
24 A.H. Bingley, Caste Handbooks for the Indian Army: Rajputs, Calcutta:
Superintendent of Government Printing, 1918; A.H. Bingley and A. Nicholls,
Caste Handbooks for the Indian Army: Brahmans, Calcutta: Superintendent
of Government Printing, 1918.
25 George MacMunn, ‘The Romance of the Martial Races of India’, Journal
of the Royal Society of Arts, 80:4128 (1932), pp. 171–193.
26 Susana B.C. Devalle, ‘Tribe in India: The Fallacy of a Colonial Category’,
in Studies on Asia and Africa from Latin America edited by David N.
Lorenzen, 1st ed., México, D.F.: El Colegio De Mexico, 1990.
27 Syed Nurullah and J.P. Naik, A Students’ History of Education in India
(1800–1973), S.G. Wasani for Macmillan Company of India, Delhi, 1974.
28 Printed in Bengal: Past and Present, VIII, 1914, pp. 130–133; and in G.
Nicholls, Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patshalla or
Sanskrit College, Allahabad, 1907, p. 1f.; K. Raj, ‘Colonial Encounters and
the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities: Great Britain and
India, 1760–1850’, Osiris, 15 (2000), pp. 119–134.
29 ‘Bureau of Education, Government of India’, in Selections from
Educational Records, Part I: 1781–1839 , edited by W.H. Sharp,
Superintendent Government Printing India, 1920.
30 In 1813 Grant’s ‘Observations, etc.,’ was laid before the House of
Commons, by whose orders it was printed. It was regarded as the ablest
answer to the arguments of the anti-missionary party headed by Major
Scott Waring and Sydney Smith (Diet. Nat. Biog. VIII , 379). It appears in
the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the
affairs of the East India Company, 16 August 1832. Appendix I, pp. 82–87.
31 Lynn Zastoupil and Martin Moir, ‘Introduction’, in The Great Indian
Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist
Controversy, 1781–1843, Curzon Press, Richmond, 1999, pp. 1–72.
32 Extract from a Minute by Lord Moira, on the judicial administration of
the Presidency of Fort William, dated 2 October 1815.
33 Printed in Bengal: Past and Present, VIII, 1914, p. 93; and in part in
Howell, Education in India, prior to 1854, etc., Calcutta: Office of the
Superintendent of Government Printing, 1872, pp. 13–14.
34 Note dated 17 July 1823 by Mr Holt Mackenzie, Territorial Department,
Revenue Consultations repetition.
35 Extract from a letter, dated 17 August 1823, from A.D. Campbell, Esq.,
Collector of Bellary, to the President and Members of the Board of Revenue,
Fort St George. Printed in Evidence of 1832, App. I , No. 15 [351/501]; also
in the Madras Selections, ii, 1856, p. xiii.
36 Address dated 11 December 1823, from Raja Rammohun Roy, Printed in
(a) G. Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India, London,
Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1838, pp. 65–11; (b) C.H.
Cameron, An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India
in Respect of the Education of the Natives and Their Official Employment,
London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1853, pp. 83–87.
37 H. Woodrow, Macaulay’s Minutes on Education of India (Collection), C.B.
Lewis, at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, 1862.
38 Lord Bentinck’s Resolution of 7 March 1835. Printed in (a) Cameron’s
Address to Parliament, pp. 81–82; (b) Madras Selections, II, 1855, pp.
lxxxiii–lxxxiv.
39 Minute by the Right Hon’ble Lord Auckland, the Governor-General, dated
24 November 1839. Printed in the Revd. Dr. Duff’s Letters addressed to
Lord Auckland on the subject of Native Education, etc., 1841.
CHAPTER 10 COLONIALITY, CIVILISATION AND CONSTITUTION
1 Government of India Act, 1854, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 77. See
http://www.indianlegislation.in/BA/BaActToc.aspx?actid=2213
2 Government of India Act, 1858, 16 & 17 Vict. c. 95. See
http://www.indianlegislation.in/BA/BaActToc.aspx?actid=2222
3 Gurumukh Nihal Singh, Landmarks in Indian Constitutional and National
Development, (1600–1919), Benares: Indian Book Shop, 1933.
4 A.B. Keith, A Constitutional History of India, 1600–1935, 1st ed., London:
Routledge, 1937.
5 House of Commons, 8 July 1858, ‘Order for Third Reading (of the Bill to
Act
of
1858)’,
H.C.
Deb,
vol.
151,
cc.
1086-1096.
See
http://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1858/jul/08/thirdreading
6 House of Lords, 15 July 1858, ‘Order of the day for the Second Reading
(of the Bill to Act of 1858)’, HL, vol. 151, cc. 1447-1481. See
http://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1858/jul/15/second-reading
7 Proclamation by the Queen in Council to the Princes, Chiefs and people of
India (published by the Governor-General at Allahabad, 1 November 1858).
See
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/proclamation-by-the-queen-incouncil-to-the-princes-chiefs-and-people-of-india
8 House of Lords, 16 July 1858, ‘Order of the day for the House to be put
into Committee (to review the Bill to Act of 1858)’, HL, vol. 151, cc. 15611590.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/lords/1858/jul/16/committee
9 House of Lords, 23 July 1858, ‘Bill (To Government of India Act 1858) read
with
the
Amendments’,
HL,
vol.
151,
cc.
2007-2020.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1858/jul/23/third-reading 1
10 Sir Courtenay Ilbert, The Government of India (supplementary chapter),
Oxford University Press, 1910.
11 The Project Committee in Chairmanship of B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of
India’s Constitution: Select Documents, Vol. II, New Delhi: The Indian
Institute of Public Administration, 1967.
12 House of Lords, 6 July 1860, ‘Education (India)—Petition’, H.L. Deb, vol.
159,
cc.
1513-1518.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/lords/1860/jul/06/education-india-petition
13 House of Commons, 28 September 1915, ‘Ecclesiastical Establishment
(India)’,
H.C.
Deb,
vol.
74,
cc.
753754
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/writtenanswers/1915/sep/28/ecclesiastical-establishment-india
CHAPTER 11 THE STANDARD OF CIVILISATION, THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
AND THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1919
1 The Project Committee in Chairmanship of B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of
India’s Constitution: Select Documents, vol. I, New Delhi: The Indian
Institute of Public Administration.
2 House of Commons, 20 August 1917, ‘India (Government Policy)’, H.C.
Deb, vol. 97, cc. 1695–1697. Danzig, R. ‘The Announcement of August
20th, 1917’. The Journal of Asian Studies 28, no. 1 (1968).
3 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, Superintendent Government
Printing,
India,
1918.
See
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Report_on_Indian_Co
nstitutional_Reforms_%28Montagu-Chelmsford_Report%29.pdf
4 Government of India Act, 1919, 9 and 8 Geo. 5, Ch. 101.
5 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 4 November 1948. See
http://164.100.47.194/Loksabha/Debates/cadebatefiles/C04 111948.html
6 House of Commons, 5 June 1919, ‘Government of India Bill’, H.C., vol.
116,
cc.
2295-2411.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1919/jun/05/government-of-india-bill
7 Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72:3
(1993), pp. 22–49.
8 G.W. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, Oxford
University Press, 1984.
9 James Mayall, International Society and International Theory: The Reason
of States. ed. Michael Donelan, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978.
10 James Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations: A Treatise of the
Jural Relations of Separate Political Communities, Edinburgh and London:
W. Blackwood and Sons, 1883.
11 G.L. Beer and H.L. Gray, African Questions at the Paris Peace
Conference, with Papers on Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Colonial
Settlement, New York: Macmillan Co., 1923.
12 Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of European Society in the
Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1975.
13 Philip P. Curtin, The Image of Africa, University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.
14 John Flint, Cecil Rhodes, London: Hutchinson, 1976; J.G. Lockhart and
C.M. Woodhouse, Cecil Rhodes, London: Macmillan, 1963.
15 Statute of the International Court of Justice, San Francisco, 26 June
1945. See https://www.icj-cij.org/en/statute
16 League of Nations, Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 April 1919.
See https://www.refworld.org/docid/3dd8b9854.html
17 Old Colony Trust Company, The League of Nations, The University Press,
Cambridge, 1919.
18 Woodrow Wilson, The Triumph of Ideals. New York and London: Harper &
Brothers Publishers, 1919.
19 House of Commons, 29 May 1919, ‘Bill Presented’, H.C., vol.116, c.1428.
See https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1919/may/29/billpresented
20 House of Commons, 28 December 1919, ‘Royal Assent’, H.C., vol. 123,
cc.
1300-1302.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1919/dec/28/royal-assent
21 House of Lords, 19 March 1918, ‘A League of Nations’, H.L., vol. 29, cc.
476-510.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/
1918/mar/19/a-league-of-nations
22 House of Lords, 26 June 1918, ‘League of Nations’, H.L., vol. 30, cc. 383429.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/lords/1918/jun/26/league-of-nations
23 Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles), Paris, 28 June 1919.
See
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust0000020043.pdf
24 House of Lords, 3 July 1919, ‘The Treaty of Peace’, H.L., vol. 35, cc. 155188. See https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1919/jul/03/thetreaty-of-peace
25 House of Commons, 21 July 1919, ‘Treaty of Peace Bill’, H.C., vol. 118,
cc.
951-1077.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1919/jul/21/treaty-of-peace-bill
26 House of Commons, 17 June 1920, ‘Statement by Mr. Balfour’, H.C., vol
130,
cc.
1491-1602.
See
https://api.parliament.uk/historichansard/commons/1920/jun/17/statement-by-mr-balfour
27 G. Chamedes, ‘The Vatican and the Reshaping of the European
International Order after the First World War’, The Historical Journal, 56:4
(2013), pp. 955–976; P. Steinbicker, ‘The Papacy and the League of
Nations’, The Irish Monthly, 64:756, pp. 369–375.
28 Lala Lajpat Rai, Self-Determination for India, New York: India Home Rule
League of America. See https://www.saada.org/item/20130123-1240
INDEX
A
Abdali, Ahmad Shah, 168
‘academic curriculum’, 71
Age of Discovery, 28, 29, 46, 48, 54, 55, 123, 151, 167
Age of Reason, 113
Akhand Bharat, 182
Ambedkar, B.R., 168, 173, 201
American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, 116
A New Approach to the Communal Problem, 181
Anglo-Indian authorities, 182
Antarctic pole, 52
Arctic pole, 51
Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), 185
Aryavarta, 169
Asian societies, 31, 34
Asiatic society, 165
‘A Tug of War between Constitution and Faith’, 25
Augsburg Settlement, 91
B
Balagangadhara, S.N., 100, 156
Battle of Buxar, 310
Battles of Plassey, 233
Bavarian law, 253
Becker, Carl L., 104
Benares Sanskrit College, 315
Bengal Sati Regulation of 1829, 242
Bentinck, William, 327
Bhagavata, 321
Bharat’s Constitution, 150, 151, 348, 383
Bishop of London, 354
Bishop of Oxford, 353
Brahma Purana, 202
Brahmo Sabha, 322
British
colonialism, 165
colonisation, 243
coloniser, 275
crown, 229
empire, 380
government, 340
Indian army, 77
parliament, 232, 239, 350, 366, 402
territories, 234
Brown, Joseph Epes, 62
‘Buddhism’, 158
Buddhist culture, 171
Burma, Borneo, 77
C
Calcutta Madrassah, 310, 315
Caldwell, Robert, 306
Calvin, John, 81, 89, 90
Calvinism, 93
Campbell, A.D., 320
Carey, William, 237
Carta, Magna, 74
Caste
and tribe, 303–310
system, 165
Catholic
catholic league, 92
catholicised institutions, 115
church, 91, 92
Charter Act of 1833, 243, 367
Chisholm, George, 183
Christian civilisation, 80
Christian
denomination, 92
denominational freedom, 92
empire, 91
European expansionism, 219
European missionaries, 56
missionaries, 72, 250
movement, 101
orthodoxy, 105
Peace, 406
Republic, 80
secular, 95
theological notions, 86
vision for civilising, 78
‘civilisation’, 175
civilisational diversity, 100
‘civilisational nationalism’, 190
‘civilized nations,’ 97
Cobo, Jose R. Martinez, 134
‘Codified Hindu Law: Myth and Reality’, 299
Cold War, 39
colonial
curriculum, 70
DNA of modernity and rationality, 43
education systems, 36
education, 69
education, 70
Colonialisation, 27
Colonialism, 25
forms of, 25, 27
policy of, 26
coloniality, 26, 39, 41, 143
colonisation, 25, 39
community, 71
goal of, 26
process, 25
societies, 68
Columbus, Christopher, 27
Columbus’ expedition of 1492, 28, 123
Committee of Public Instruction, 329
‘common law tradition’, 74
Congress–League scheme, 380
Constituent Assembly, 191, 192, 206
constitutional patriotism, 118
Creating a New Medina, 173
Critical Theory of Race, 33, 47
Critique of Pure Reason, 107
culmination of process, 46
‘cultural coloniality’, 41
‘cultural complex’ of ‘modernity’, 30
‘cultural complex’ of ‘rationality’, 30
D
Dalal, Nassima, 57
Dante’s Divine Comedy, 44
Das, Seth Govind, 198
2007 Declaration, 139
decolonial approach, 79, 128
decolonialisation, 36
decoloniality, 27, 31, 40, 167
Decolonised societies, 31
deep-seated coloniality, 115
De Sacramentis Christinae Fidei, 86
Dharmic belief systems, 288
‘Dharmic unity’, 292
Dhulipala’s, Venkat, 173
Dirks, Nicholas B., 156
DNA of modernity and rationality, 43
Doval, Ajit, 177
Downward Filtration Theory, 342
Draft Constitution, 193, 199
Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, 169, 193
Dunbar, William, 45
E
Earl of Ellenborough, 361
Earl of Galloway, 373
‘Early Modernity: The History of a Word’, 44
East India Company Act , 151, 234
‘educational project’, 158
English law, 253
Enlightened Europeanism, 110
Enlightenment project, 104
Escobar, Arturo, 138
Essential Religious Practices (ERP) test, 281, 285, 286
‘ethnonationalism’, 119
‘Eurocentered colonialism’, 40
Eurocentric abstract universals, 112
Eurocentric universalism, 120
Eurocentrism, 27, 29
Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism, 81, 277
European
Britain, 72
colonial project, 76
colonialism, 27, 35, 46, 47, 54, 61, 106, 125, 144, 161,
165
coloniality, 32, 73, 75, 122
colonisation, 27, 33, 34, 46, 52
coloniser, 36, 41, 42, 55, 61, 78, 79, 140, 164, 277
colonising empires, 37
community, 124
‘cultural coloniality’, 27
culture, 41, 43, 58, 71, 73
education, 56, 77
lines, 36
model of education, 66
nationalism, 178
Peace, 145
States, 95
style nationalism, 126
Telecommunications Standards Institute, 37
universalisms, 29
values, 127
variant, 31
Western law, 99
Westphalian States, 98
extra ecclesiam nulla salus, 85
F
Freedom of a Christian, 88
French Catholic missionary, 305
G
Geographical unity, 172
Germanic Ostrogoths, 44
Goel, Sitaram, 166
Goulburn, Henry, 271
Government of India Act of 1858, 235, 349
Governor-General in Council, 311
Governor-General of India, 322, 340
Granville, Earl, 365
Grey, Charles, 245
Grosfoguel, Ramón, 39, 127
H
Habsburg Empire’s, 94
Herries, John Charles, 270
Hill Politics in Northeast India, 306
Hindoo law, 253
‘Hindoo social reformer’, 322
Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 299
Hindu civilisation, 180, 181
Hindu Marriage Act, 299
Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 299
Hindu nationalism, 190
Hindu society, 242
‘Hindu Sources’, 189
Hindu Succession Act, 299
Hindu Superiority, 180
Hindu traditions, 280
‘Home Rule’, 377
‘humanism’, 64
Hurd, Elizabeth S., 104
I
‘identity politics’, 129
Imperial Diet, 92
India: A Sacred Geography, 224
Indian Civil Service, 327
Indian Constitution, 191
Indian Government, 331
Indian National Congress, 378
Indian rulers, 310
India through the Ages, 220
Indic civilisational perspective, 82, 184
Indigenous and Tribal Populations, 132
Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 131
‘indigenous peoples’, 131
Inter Caetera, 48, 152, 229, 275
‘international’ community, 138
International Court of Justice, 96
International Labour Organization (ILO), 131
conventions, 134
definitions, 136, 139
‘International Law: A Westphalian Legacy’, 96
‘Islamic civilisation’, 183, 184
Islamic theological justification, 174
J
Jacques, Martin, 177
Jagannath Rath Yatra, 238
‘Jainism’, 158
Jamia Millia Islamia University, 174
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, 174
Janusian approach, 107
K
Kali Yuga, 180
Kamath, H.V., 197, 201
Kant, Immanuel, 105. 106
Kingdom of Christ, 89
kingdom of Granada, 49
king
Castile, 51
Dushyanta, 205
James Bible, 86
Leon, 51
L
laws of temporal rulers, 89
League of Nations, 151, 210, 211
Letter Concerning Toleration, 103
Leutemann, Heinrich, 60
liberal model of toleration, 102
Local Government in Ancient India, 208
Locke, John, 102
Lombard law, 253
Lordship in Council, 341
Luther, Martin, 75, 81, 88, 89, 90, 113
M
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 252
Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act,
282
Maha Bharata, 321
Mahabharata, 176
Mahabharata War, 180
Mahometan law, 253
Majumdar, R.C., 178, 222
Maldonado-Torres, Nelson, 39, 54
Mandela, Nelson, 72
Maratha empire, 168
‘materialism’, 64
Middle Eastern colonialism, 161
Middle Eastern colonialities, 166
Mignolo, Walter D., 39, 47, 124, 126, 141
Missionary Clause of 1813 Act, 242, 422
Mohani, Hasrat, 199
monastic community, 84
Montevideo Convention, 94
Montford Reforms, 422
Montford Report, 383, 402
Mookerji, Radha Kumud, 178
Muhammad of Ghazni, 170
Murphy, Raymond, 65
Muslem League, 419
N
‘national communities’, 133
‘nationalism’, 190
Nationalism in Hindu Culture, 181, 189
Native American societies, 72
Nature’s Government, 65
never-ending process of conversion, 83
Non-Western societies, 98
O
Objectives Resolution, 191
Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime, 107
onto-epistemology and theology (OET), 13
based approach, 129
framework, 129, 140, 348
systems, 116, 190
Ostrogothic ruler, 44
P
Pakistan or the Partition of India, 168
Palestinian connection, 162
Pant, Govind Ballabh, 196
Pant, Hargovind, 204
Papal authority, 91
Paris Peace Conference, Nation-States and Civilised Nations,
390
Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920, 389, 398
Parsee law, 253
‘Peace’, 350
Peace of Augsburg, 91, 92
Peace of Westphalia, 80, 81, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 100, 101
People of India, 221
phenomenon of globalisation, 46
‘pluriversalism’, 100
policy of racial segregation, 71
‘Political Testament of 1914’, 378
political theology of Protestantism, 105
‘politico-epistemic violence of modernity’, 125
politico-theological framework of civilisation, 97
Pope Alexander VI, 48
Portuguese policies, 95
Preedy, H.W., 277
process
constitutional conversion of, 114
conversion, 83
cultural colonisation, 41
nation-building, 38
rentseeking, 77
‘progressive constitutionalism’, 114
Protestant and Enlightenment, 114
Protestant framework, 102, 104
Protestant politico-theological framework, 82
Protestant Reformation, 81, 82, 83, 88, 90, 91, 101, 104,
105, 108, 158, 229
approach, 277
grievances, 88
warrants, 81
pseudo-scientific racial theories, 41
‘psychocultural marginality’, 73
Q
quantum-based approach, 128
Quijano, Aníbal, 39, 40, 45, 46, 54, 124, 156
R
race-based colonialism, 47
‘Racism as We Understand It Today’, 54
‘radical uncoupling of the cultural and the social from
nature’, 66
Rai, Lala Lajpat, 412
Ramayannm, 321
Ram Janmabhoomi verdict, 24
Reformation movement, 91
Reformation-style sanctimony, 110
Reformative approach, 81
Reformed and Enlightened European coloniality, 156
‘reformist’ movements, 159
relational land ontology, 141–145
Ripuarian law, 253
Roe, Thomas, 149
Roman Catholic Church, 81, 89, 90, 94, 113, 114
Roman
catholicism, 92
catholic mission, 308
catholic OET, 83
emperor, 80, 91
empire, 44, 92
imperial rule, 44
imperialism, 125
law, 253
lutheranism, 92
Roover, Jakob De, 79, 101, 109156
Roy, Raja Rammohun, 322
S
Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, 23, 25
Sabarimala Temple, 24
Salic law, 253
Sanatana Dharma, 181, 241
Sangscrit College, 324
Sarda, Har Bilas, 178
Sarkar, Jadunath, 178
Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing
Colonial Discourse, 242
Saxena, Shibban Lal, 194
Seed, Patricia, 44
semi-tribal populations, 131
‘Senate of Christian Europe’, 94
Shirur Math Judgment, 282, 285, 296
Sidhwa, R.K., 197
silo-based approach, 66
Siouan culture, 63
Smith, Vincent Arthur, 184
Smritis, 215
‘South Asia Studies’, 166
‘Standard of Civilization’ (SOC), 97, 100
framework, 97
State denomination of Christianity, 92
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities, 134
Supreme Court, 23
Constitution Bench of, 23, 24
Judicature, 242
Swarup, Ram, 166
‘sword of coercion’, 104
T
The Age of Enlightenment, 28
‘The Archbishop of Canterbury’, 355
The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State, 177
The Earl of Shaftesbury, 359
The Fundamental Unity of India, 181, 182, 207
‘The Impact of Colonial Contact on the Cultural Heritage of
Native American Indian People’, 57
‘The Industrial Revolution’, 28
The Martial Races of India, 306
The Origins of Indian Nationalism, 223
‘The Reformation’, 28
The Sacred Pipe, 63
The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian, 62
Third Battle of Panipat, 168
Thirty Years’ War in Europe, 80
Toward Perpetual Peace, 106
‘transformative constitutionalism’, 114
transgenerational trauma, 73
Treaty of Westphalia, 28
tribal peoples, 132
Tripathi, Kamalapathi, 202
‘true faiths’, 162
Two Nation Theory, 169, 174
U
United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP), 137
Upanishads, 202
V
Vayu Purana, 202
Vishnu Purana, 202
‘voluntary conversion’, 57
W
Waldron, Jeremy, 102
Walsh, Catherine E., 39, 125
Western
civilisation, 124
hegemony, 161
imperialism, 27, 38, 39
imperialist, 159
imperialists, 139
normative framework, 38
Westphalian box, 126
Westphalian civilisation, 100, 111
Westphalian model, 99
Westphalian nation-state system, 81, 95
Westphalian Peace, 95
Westphalian principles, 99
Westphalian system, 100
White European Christian, 180
White European Christian coloniser, 179
William, Fort, 234
William Pitt, 322
Word of God, 115
Wynter, Sylvia, 39
X
‘xenophobia’, 119
Z
Zel Domus, 93
Ziltener, Patrick, 76
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Sai Deepak is an engineer-turned-lawyer with a bachelor’s
degree in mechanical engineering from Anna University
(2002–2006) and a bachelor’s degree in law from IIT
Kharagpur (2006–2009). From July 2009 to June 2016, Sai
practised as a litigator primarily before the High Court of
Delhi and the Supreme Court of India as part of a leading
National Capital Region-based law firm, reaching the
position of an associate partner in 2015. In June 2016, he
founded Law Chambers of J. Sai Deepak and set up an
independent practice as an arguing counsel. Ever since, Sai
has been engaged by law firms and solicitors to appear and
argue on behalf of their clients before the Delhi High Court,
the Supreme Court, the Madras High Court, the Competition
Commission of India, NCLAT, the NCLTs and arbitral
tribunals. In 12 years of practice, Sai has carved a niche for
himself as a litigator in matters relating to civil commercial
laws, intellectual property laws, constitutional law and
competition law. Over the years, he has been a part of
several landmark cases, such as the Sabarimala Ayyappa
Temple and Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple matters, and
the dispute over Basmati Geographical Indication.
Sai is also an avid legal commentator and has articles to
his credit in reputed international and national legal
journals. As a law student, in May 2009, his blogpost on the
Bajaj–TVS patent dispute was cited extensively and relied
upon by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court to
vacate an interim injunction granted by a Single Judge
Bench of the Court. This was perhaps the first instance in
Indian judicial history where a law student’s work was cited,
and relied upon, by a court. Sai frequently writes on
constitutional issues for Open Magazine, The New Indian
Express, The Financial Express and The Daily Guardian. His
talks and lectures on law and society are widely followed.
Sai has also been consulted on a variety of IP-related issues
by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal
Trade, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India. In
August 2019, Sai was among the 19 alumni of IIT Kharagpur
who were awarded the Young Alumni Achiever’s Awards.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Foreword by Dr. Gautam Senxv
Acknowledgements
Introduction
SECTION I: COLONIALITY
1 Colonisation, Colonialism, Coloniality and Decoloniality:
Language Matters
2 The Discovery of Coloniality and the Birth of Decoloniality
3 Coloniality, Indigenous Faiths, Nature and Knowledge
4 Entrenchment of Coloniality through European Political
Structures
5 Decoloniality, Indigeneity, Subjectivity and Relationality
SECTION II: CIVILISATION
6 Bharat, Coloniality and Colonial Consciousness
7 Bharat as a Civilisation
8 European Coloniality and the Indic Civilisation
9 Christian Colonial Consciousness, the Hindu Religion,
Caste, Tribe and Education
SECTION III: CONSTITUTION
10 Coloniality, Civilisation and Constitution
11 The Standard of Civilisation, the League of Nations and
the Government of India Act, 1919
Notes
Index
About the Author